Deborah wins Patron’s Award for Endangered Crafts 2025

Buckinghamshire quilt maker Deborah McGuire has won the sixth annual Patron’s Award for Endangered Crafts supported by the King Charles III Charitable Fund, including a £3,000 prize awarded at a special presentation at Wentworth Woodhouse on Monday 17 November 2025.

The Patron’s Award (formerly known as the President’s Award) celebrates an experienced practitioner who has gone to great lengths to ensure the continuation of their at-risk skills for the benefit of the next generation. The award of £3,000 is funded by the King Charles III Charitable Fund and the winner is selected by Heritage Crafts Patron His Majesty the King from the three finalists.

Deborah McGuire is a hand quilter, academic historian and leading advocate committed to safeguarding the traditional technique of rocking stitch and the use of the Welsh quilt frame. Her work, which led to the inclusion of ‘hand quilting in the frame’ on the Heritage Crafts Red List, combines academic research with active practice. She plans to use the award to support a crucial two-day integrated workshop to bring together elderly practitioners to share technical skills and create essential educational materials to ensure the survival of this working-class cultural heritage.

The first runner-up was Emily Johnson from 1882 Ltd, whose direct investment in the Stoke-on-Trent pottery industry is safeguarding critically endangered ceramics skills. In 2021, she established a 9,000 square foot factory (nicknamed ‘Generation 6’) to house master potters and implement an independent, highly successful trainee skills and development programme. Emily received the Patricia Lovett Award, a £1,000 award for second place, donated by former Heritage Crafts Chair Patricia Lovett MBE.

The second runner-up was Mark Shiner, a master sailmaker in the Orkney Islands who teaches Scotland’s only sailmaking course, focusing on the traditional ‘floor lofting’ and cutting techniques. Mark’s expertise was recently ‘exported’ to the USA, where he trained the traditional sailmaking team at the world-renowned Mystic Seaport Museum.

For a third year running Heritage Crafts commissioned reverse glass gilder and Endangered Crafts Fund recipient Eddy Bennett to make the trophy for the award using an array of reverse-glass techniques.

Photo: Deborah McGuire, winner of the 2025 Patron’s Award for Endangered Crafts, with Niamh Walsh from the King Charles II Charitable Fund, and David Clarke, Heritage Crafts Chair. Photo by Robert Wade.