Harry Peach

Harry Hardy Peach (1874–24 January 1936) was an English businessman and author involved in campaigning for improved conditions in factories and the establishment of the Design and Industries Association and the Council for the Preservation of Rural England.

Early life and family Peach was born in Toronto, Canada to parents from Nottinghamshire, England. When he was three years old, the family returned to Britain and lived in Oadby, Leicestershire where his father worked as an estate agent.

Career

After leaving school, Peach worked with his father for a short time as an estate agent before opening a specialist bookshop in Leicester dealing in manuscripts and early printed books. Dryad supplied cane deck lounger chairs for White Star Lines ships, including the Titanic. By 1912, the company had expanded to a workforce of 50 and moved into larger premises, where he joined forces with designer William Pick to set up Dryad Metal Works, supplying architectural and household fittings manufactured in copper, brass and wrought iron. whose first slogan was "Nothing Need Be Ugly". The DIA was set up to promote better relationships between manufacturers, designers and retailers and to "foster a more intelligent understanding amongst the public for what is best and soundest in design" and was inspired by the Deutscher Werkbund, set up in 1907 in an attempt to integrate traditional crafts and industrial mass-production techniques. In 1914 Harry visited its exhibition in Cologne.

Peach was also active in campaigns to preserve the countryside and prevent the uncontrolled expansion of towns and cities and unregulated advertising. He was secretary of the Leicestershire Footpath Association from 1912, and wrote its history in 1928.

He was also a long-term member of the Commons, Open Spaces and Footpaths Society and was the Honorary Secretary of the exhibitions committee for the Council for the Preservation of Rural England (now the Campaign to Protect Rural England), for which he organised many exhibitions and lectured all over England. The School of Law's library is named after him. After his death a memorial fund was raised which funds the biennial Harry Hardy Peach Lecture, organised by the Leicester Literary and Philosophical Society. |group="n"

A collection of around 3,000 handicraft items, amassed by Peach from all round the world, was given in 1969 to Leicester Museum, where some are displayed in its World Arts Gallery .

Pat Kirkham (then a Senior Lecturer at Leicester Polytechnic) wrote a detailed biography, published in 1986 by The Design Council.