My friend Ken Stradling, who has died aged 100, played a unique part in the history of British postwar design in Bristol and the south-west. His personal vision, business acumen and winning personality transformed a prewar shop run for craftspeople into the Bristol Guild – a small department store selling well-designed domestic products from kitchenware and toys to furniture and original crafts. Ken was managing director of the Guild from 1965 to 2006.
Born in Totterdown, south Bristol, Ken was the son of Grace (nee Counsell) and Arthur Stradling, a businessman. He attended Bristol grammar school, and was hugely influenced by his headmaster, JE Barton, who lectured on design for the BBC. The second world war changed everything for Ken: after his army service as an officer on the home front, initially working for the Forestry Commission, then in the Black Watch and the Royal Corps of Signals at Catterick, teaching and training, Ken realised he wanted a forward-looking career, in modern design. He persuaded the Bristol Guild, then a small shop, to employ him as assistant manager, in 1948.
After marrying Betty Haggar, a painter who taught art at Clifton high school, in 1958, the couple began to travel to Scandinavia and Czechoslovakia, sourcing and exploring new design. She was his soulmate, who shared his passion for design and the crafts and introduced him to many new interests until her untimely death in 1964.
The Guild began to flourish, as Ken created his networks. He had joined the Bristol Architects Forum in 1959, and helped edit the three issues of Bristol Forum published in 1960-61. This brought him into contact with young, up-and-coming architects and designers, including Colin Beales (Group Architects DRG) and the furniture designer Peter Cuddon, with whom he set up Sparta Furniture Associates. He co-founded the Design Exhibition Bristol in 1958, showcasing products featured by the Design Centre in London, and was active in the local Design and Industries Association.
Ken helped shape the tastes of shoppers, making the Guild a key destination to see and feel new, exciting work from Britain, Scandinavia and throughout Europe. A core respect for modernist design was balanced by an enjoyment of the quirky and absurd, particularly evident in the toy department and the gallery. A craft gallery opened in 1961 and he travelled widely to seek new talent. He acted as a visiting assessor in ceramics at Central Saint Martins and Hereford College of Art – and from 1989 spent nine years as deputy director of the Dartington Cider Press.
Ken made a huge difference to people’s lives: for the sculptor Sid Burnard he was “the magician who turned me from a navvy to an artist”. He was involved in Bristol Dock Ventures, the museum ship SS Great Britain and various other organisations, chairing Bristol’s Gane Trust (1988-2013), which promotes crafts and further education in the crafts, and art and design.
Throughout a 60-year stewardship, Ken collected many of the items that he also sold and, on nominally retiring in 2006, “found he had a collection”. It opened to the public as the Stradling Collection in Bristol in 2014, with a lively learning and exhibition programme, including student-curated shows. His rich contribution to Bristol’s cultural life brought an honorary degree from the University of Bristol, and in 2020 he was made an MBE.
He is survived by his nephew Robert.
