WORK Records

You find people in an archive...

Karen Millhouse, Archivist, Derbyshire Record Office

WORK Records is an innovative collaboration between contemporary art and heritage, exploring historic working lives at three family firms in the East Midlands, through the collections at the John Smedley Archive, Corby Heritage Centre and Derbyshire Record Office.

Three investigative teams of heritage curators, historians, artists and volunteers have researched the histories of working lives at knitwear factory John Smedley in Lea Bridge, packaging company Robinson and Sons in Chesterfield, and former steelworks Stewarts & Lloyds in Corby. Artists Kate Anderson, Kim Noce and Saul Pankhurst have made short animated films inspired by this research.

The Hands, Kim Noce
John Smedley Limited
John Smedley Archive

Robbos, Kate Anderson
Robinson and Sons
Derbyshire Record Office

Club Corby, Saul Pankhurst
Stewarts & Lloyds
Corby Heritage Centre

The WORK Records films premiered, along with Chris Bevan's film about the project, at a special event at Derby Museum & Art Gallery on 12 September 2026 with artists Kate Anderson and Saul Pankhurst, composer Hutch Demouilpied and Jane Middleton-Smith, John Smedley Archivist, in conversation with Derbyshire-based curator, educator and writer Camilla Brown. Special community screenings also took place in Lea Bridge, Chesterfield and Corby.

The films will be online on this website in November 2026.

Between now and then, we'll be adding lots to explore. There's a page for each of the WORK Records sites, and on the EXPLORE page we'll be adding lots more, including writing from WORK Records Historian, Dr Stefan Ramsden, and some of our volunteers, interviews with former workers, and a WORK Records timeline that will place the histories of the three firms and their workers in context. Click on the boxes below...

Watch extracts from Chris Bevan's film, Making WORK Records, here.

Check out our WORK Records playlist here.

Follow WORK Records on Instagram.