Key Information
Reference code
Title
Date(s)
- 1943-1944 (Creation)
Level of description
Folder
Extent
1 folder.
Content and Structure
Scope and content
A-B. Including correspondence with: A Aikman, about the course of study of Design and advice for his daughter; Lady Anderson about the design for curtains at No 11 Downing Street and ideas about Design & Art schools; A C West, Robert Gordon's Technical College, Aberdeen, about staff salary scales; Richard H Heindel, Director, American Library, American Embassy, London, about a book he has sent Walton for the School; T Grainger Stewart, Advisory Council on Education in Scotland, about a Special Committee that has been formed to consider education and industry; the Advisory Council on Education in Scotland about the training of Teachers; references to wartime conditions for example American servicemen at GSA, etc; Miss Rosemary Brownlie, about her donation to the School of Art Comforts Fund for ex-students in the Forces; Mrs R Harrison to the Board of Trade, asking for a grant of organdie, coupon free, and Battleship Linoleum, for teaching purposes; J Cleveland Belle, The Cotton Board, about the Post War Training of Designers for the Cotton Industry; Major Greaves of Booth's, Stoke-on-Trent about a plate-design by GSA textile students; Sir Steven Bilsland about art and industry.
Appraisal, destruction and scheduling
This material has been appraised in line with Glasgow School of Art Archives and Collections standard procedures.
Accruals
System of arrangement
General Information
Name of creator
Biographical history
Allan Walton was born in 1891, in Cheadle Hulme, Cheshire and educated at Harrow. He then studied architecture under Arnold Mitchell in London and art at the Westminster School of Art under W.R. Sickert. He also studied at the Slade School and in Paris. Walton was appointed Director of Glasgow School of Art in 1943, probably on W.O. Hutchison's advice. He was already well known at the Glasgow Art School as the external assessor in Textile Design for the four Scottish Art Schools. Walton was popular with staff and students, regularly holding tea-parties for students in the director's rooms and entering into the spirit of student concerts where authority figures like himself were mocked. He had his own successful business in the south of England, Allan Walton Textiles, which produced printed furnishing materials. Their products featured designs by Duncan Grant, Vanessa Bell, Frank Dobson, and Walton himself. He also executed commissions for interior decoration, garden design, and designed electric fires and furniture. Allan Walton Textiles' products are considered to be among the finest of their type, and Walton was elected one of the first Royal Designers for Industry. There is an archive of material from Walton's firm in the Archive of Art & Design at the V&A.
Walton had been educated at Harrow. He then studied architecture under Arnold Mitchell in London and art at the Westminster School of Art under W.R. Sickert. He also studied at the Slade School of Art and in Paris. He exhibited widely in Britain and abroad, and lived mainly in London and Shotley, Suffolk. In 1948 he was appointed Professor of Textile Design at the Royal College of Art, but became ill and died on 12 September 1948 before he could take up the post.