Autumn 2014
The reality was that it took a lot of dedication and hard work, but it did need a spark to set it off, and the man who made it all possible was Ian Whitfield, then owner of the flourishing covered market in Bermond- sey. It was he who mustered resources, provided fund- ing and premises and called in old friends and acquain- tances to get things started. Heather Collingwood from Ian’s office was immedi- ately co-opted as the office secretary, closely followed by Philip Broadbridge, an old advertising colleague of Ian’s who agreed to act as Company Secretary at the princely salary of £1,500 for the first year. Together these two became the backbone of the association for the next two decades.
A History of LAPADA
AboveThe Rt. Hon. Sir Frederick Corfield QC PC, LAPADA’s long- serving first chairman. Having studied law as a prisoner of war in the 1940s, he served as a minister in two Conservative governments and proved to be an astute campaigner for the trade.
a campaigning force and he served LAPADA well until his retirement in 1989. Impressive credentials were important because
Above Heather Collingwood was the very first person employed by LAPADA in 1974. Appointed a director in 1976, she was quietly responsible for many of the association’s initiatives, as well as the day-to-day running of the office. It was she who suggested the Chippendale candelabrum to replace LAPADA’s original spread-eagle logo in the early 1980s, and she who championed the open-plan layout for the association’s ground- breaking antiques shows at the Royal College of Art from 1991.
LAPADA was bravely launched with a press confer- ence on Friday 13th December, 1974 and the omens were not generally good. In his avidly read column in Antiques Trade Gazette, dealer Gordon Savage wished the association well but felt it would struggle “to sur- vive even the launching ceremony.”
It had been hoped that an introduction to the Mar- quess of Hertford would produce a chairman and fig- urehead in time for this important occasion, but his expectations of a £10,000 salary were way beyond the means of an association with barely 50 members. In the event this vacancy was soon filled by Sir
Frederick Corfield QC, a lawyer and MP with ministe- rial experience, whose standing added considerable gravitas to the organisation. His political and legal ex- perience did much to make the association’s name as
LAPADA was not the only organisation setting out to be a national voice for the trade. In early 1975 the trade press was full of advertisements for the National An- tique Dealers’ Association, organised out of Brighton. As it turned out, this threat was short-lived and by June 1975 NADA members who met the necessary criteria were given the chance to be absorbed into LAPADA. From the beginning, only VAT-registered dealers with three year’s experience in the business and a stock value of at least £5,000 were considered for membership. Though some saw this as a barrier to LAPADA’s growth, the number of dealers already registered for VAT had the board confidently predicting a membership of 2,000 within two years of the launch. That such numbers never materialised is surely an indication of the unclubbable nature of many antique dealers, rather than any lack of effort on the part of LAPADA’s management and board. The essential framework of the association developed
early, with an executive and a small office staff reporting to an independent chairman and a board of professional dealers. It has proved a resilient and effective regime. Over the years the achievements of the association’s
executive officers and chairmen have been well recog- nised, but it is less often realised how much work has been put in by the unpaid directors, working dealers who sit on the board, often giving huge amounts of their time. Over 40 years, those who have served in this way are too numerous to mention, but their efforts have helped not only other members but also those many ‘non-joiners’ who have nevertheless benefited when a stand has been made on measures such as auctioneers’ premiums, the Artists’ Resale Right, the Kent Bill, not to mention the perennial VAT.
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