The Heritage 100 Alliance

A mutual defence pact for Britain's most important heritage manufacturers.

Every firm profiled on Made Properly is already a member. You don't need to apply. You don't need to pay. You're in because you deserve to be — because you make things properly, employ skilled craftspeople, and have been doing it for decades or centuries.

The question is what you do next.

Read the full case for collective action: The Warrior's Handbook

Two Tiers

Listed

You're profiled on Made Properly. You have a dedicated page telling your story. You're on the map as one of Britain's most important heritage manufacturers. You're visible to customers, journalists, and researchers who are looking for firms that still make things the right way.

Every profiled firm is automatically a Listed member. No action required.

Active

You step up. You participate. You help protect not just your own business, but the businesses of the 99 other firms standing alongside you. And you unlock everything below.

What Active Members Get

Shared Compliance

The Employment Rights Act 2025 introduced 28 reforms. Your obligations changed overnight. Keeping up requires legal and HR expertise that a 25-person workshop doesn't have.

Active members share one legal and compliance team across 100 firms. Employment law updates, HMRC changes, health and safety obligations, union access requirements — monitored, summarised, and distributed. Your share of the cost: a fraction of hiring your own.

Collective Lobbying

One firm writing to their MP gets a form letter back. 100 heritage manufacturers — representing thousands of skilled jobs, centuries of tradition, and communities across Britain — get a ministerial meeting.

We lobby for: a UK equivalent of France's EPV heritage label. Tax credits for craft wages. Protected designations for geographically specific products. Reversal of the EOT CGT relief cut. Fair trade remedy enforcement against knockoff imports. Energy pricing that doesn't punish British makers for being British.

Group Energy Buying

UK industrial electricity is 89% above the EU median. You can't change government policy alone, but 100 firms buying together negotiate bulk rates that a single workshop never could.

The Heritage 100 Mark

A consumer-facing quality badge that says: this product was made by one of Britain's 100 most important heritage manufacturers. Think Made in Sheffield (400+ firms) but national. Instant market premium. Collective marketing. Consumer trust built on collective reputation.

PE Defence Intelligence

When a private equity firm approaches one Active member, every Active member knows within 24 hours. What they offered. What they said. How they positioned it. Shared playbook for saying no. Shared legal advice for building structural defences.

No more being picked off one by one.

Group EOT Advisory

Converting to an Employee Ownership Trust is the strongest structural defence against hostile takeover. But the legal process is complex and expensive. Active members access a shared EOT specialist — one adviser serving multiple firms, costs split between them. Turn individual decisions into a collective movement.

Partnership Plans

We've built 12 ready-made partnership plans designed for Heritage 100 firms to work together:

Geographic clusters:

• "Made in Northampton" — 9 shoemakers, joint heritage trail, collective marketing
• "Stoke Pottery Quarter" — 4 ceramics firms, combined factory tour ticket, co-branded editions
• "Birmingham Jewellery Quarter" — 4 metalwork firms, World Craft City activation
• "Sheffield Steel" — 6 blade and forging firms, documentary series, Made in Sheffield kite mark

Supply chain stories:

• "Field to Foot" — J&FJ Baker tannery + shoemakers: the 14-month journey from oak bark to finished boot
• "Fleece to Fashion" — Yorkshire/Scottish mills + Private White V.C.: sheep to finished garment
• "Leather to Luxury" — Pittards/Baker tanneries + Dents, Ettinger, Tusting, Swaine Adeney Brigg

Cross-category collaborations:

• Heritage 100 luxury gift box — one product from each of 5-6 firms, curated and sold through Made Properly
• Endangered craft auction — annual event featuring one-off pieces from firms practising critically endangered crafts
• "The Heritage Hour" — monthly YouTube documentary series profiling one firm per episode

Digital platforms:

• Heritage 100 marketplace — shared e-commerce platform with Heritage Verified certification
• Heritage AI Lab — shared AI tools (chatbots, product recommenders, authentication) built once, licensed to many

Each plan includes: which firms, what they'd do, why it works, a real-world precedent that's already been done, and a timeline. These aren't ideas. They're blueprints.

Heritage Hour Documentary Series

Made Properly is producing a monthly documentary series profiling Heritage 100 firms. Each episode: 30-45 minutes, one craft, one workshop, one story. Published on YouTube where third-party heritage craft content already generates 100,000+ views per video — but zero of those videos are made by the brands themselves.

Active members get priority for filming. Season 1 features 12 firms with the strongest untold stories.

Heritage AI Lab

AI adoption across the Heritage 100 is effectively zero. One firm — John Smedley — uses AI search and marketing tools and saw a 61% conversion uplift. Everyone else: nothing.

The Heritage AI Lab builds shared tools that multiple firms can use:

• Heritage chatbots trained on each firm's history, products, and care instructions
• AI product recommenders ("Find your perfect boot/glove/watch")
• Collector authentication tools for Moorcroft pottery, Vertex watches, Caithness paperweights
• Virtual try-on for watches, crystal, and pottery

Built once. Licensed to many. Cost per firm: a fraction of custom development.

Sectors Represented

The Heritage 100 spans:

• Footwear — Northampton and beyond (Cheaney, Crockett & Jones, Edward Green, Tricker's, Loake, Grenson, Sanders, Solovair, William Lennon, George Cleverley, Gaziano & Girling)
• Textiles — Harris Tweed, Johnstons of Elgin, Abraham Moon, AW Hainsworth, Lochcarron, John Smedley, Heathcoat Fabrics, Private White V.C.
• Ceramics — Burleigh, Emma Bridgewater, Moorcroft, 1882 Ltd
• Glass — Cumbria Crystal, Dartington Crystal, Caithness Glass
• Watches — Fears, Vertex, Garrick, Pinion
• Leather — J&FJ Baker, Pittards, Dents, Ettinger, Tusting, Swaine Adeney Brigg, The Leather Satchel Co.
• Steel & Blades — Ernest Wright, William Whiteley, Samuel Staniforth, Arthur Price, Robert Welch
• Metalwork — Deakin & Francis, A.E. Williams, William Mitchell, Broadway & Co, W.H. Tildesley
• Brushes & Tools — Kent Brushes, Hillbrush
• Accessories — Fox Umbrellas, James Smith & Sons, Barbour
• Furniture — Titchmarsh & Goodwin
• Performance — Freed of London

Room for 100. Space for more.

Founding Active Members

We're inviting the first 20 firms to go Active. Founding Active Members shape the alliance from the start — they set the priorities, choose the first collective actions, and define what the Heritage 100 mark means.

This is not a subscription service. It's a pact. You contribute what you can — knowledge, connections, time, resources. You get back the collective strength of 100 firms that nobody can ignore.

Get Involved

Email: aibusinesshub.uk@gmail.com — subject line "Heritage 100" Call: Tom Fairhall — 07920 754 997 Or just reply to the email that brought you here. We already know your story. We already built your page. Now let's build the alliance.

The Heritage 100 Alliance is an initiative of Made Properly — the platform profiling Britain's most important heritage manufacturers. We believe the firms that make things properly deserve to be protected, promoted, and preserved.