In 2022 Meath County Archives received funding from Creative Ireland which began our first significant work to date on the Clayton Mills collection. In the project Meath County Archive worked with conservators to repair a set of 9 minute books & 7 wages books from the company.

The collection has a large series of correspondence covering over 80 years of the business. This details the contract & business interests of the company & highlights how international their remit was. The listing of this series is essential in understanding the reach & influence of the company, as well as offering an insight into broader research areas such as industry and design.

Cataloguing work on this series began in January 2023 with our 2nd year of funding from the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport & Media under the Creative Ireland Programme. Meath County Archive focused on employing a temporary archivist to arrange & list the collection of 76 boxes. The post was filled in June 2023 & work has been ongoing to date. This is a large undertaking & needed some initial work researching companies & associates. To date the project has listed 52 boxes of correspondence & has highlighted the reach of the Clayton company even offering some insights into their eventual decline.

As we enter the 4th & final year of cataloguing work on the collection with Creative Ireland we hope that this body of work & resulting catalogue will lead to many more opportunities for research & collaboration.

Please note that the details of events listed above are provided by the relevant Local Authorities.