Cut and Craft, Leeds: ‘We found an engraved matchbox from over 100 years ago that belonged to Titanic violinist Wallace Hartley’

The operations manager at Cut and Craft in Leeds and his team discovered an engraved matchbox that dates back more than 100 years and belonged to the Titanic violinist Wallace Hartley.

The Titanic bandleader, Wallace Hartley, used to perform in the building formerly known as Collinson’s Cafe in the early 1900s before he boarded the ship.

During renovations of the Cut and Craft building, operations manager, Darioush Shahidi, 34, from Leeds, and his team stumbled upon a matchbox that belonged to him.

Wallace, who was a violinist, led the eight-member band on the Titanic and played various pieces as the ship sank on April 15, 1912. He died along with his crew.

After uncovering the story behind this man, Darioush and his team delved deeper into the building’s history.

“Our interior designers really brought the vision to life and it wasn’t until we started the plans that we actually started digging a bit deeper into the history of the building,” Darioush said.

“It had been the former jigsaw site but prior to that, way back in the day, it was known as Collinson’s Cafe.

“It was a high tea room where the elites of Leeds would gather and join and have afternoon tea.

“There’d be live music, a luxe coffee house and going back into history even further we discovered that there was some association to the Titanic and the band master. He used to perform in that building itself.

“When they found all the rubble and went through the rummage they found a matchbox that was engraved from the staff at Collinson’s Cafe; his name was Wallace Hartley and we've played a lot into that history.”

The restaurant has seen significant growth over the last four years.

“We are very busy so Leeds remains our busiest site to the point where we've made it our flagship,” Darioush said.

“We’ve now relocated our head office into the Leeds restaurant. We welcome anywhere up to 3,500 customers a week, so it's a very busy restaurant hence the reason for the expansion as well.

“That was very much built on customer demand as opposed to we're just going to throw one and a £1.5 million and hope for the best.

“We’re private so with the whole venue now we now cover 280 seats. That’s with two private dining spaces, bar space and then the main restaurant areas as well so it's very large.”

Darioush has heard some interesting stories from their customers.

“We’ve exposed some real characters that we didn’t know about,” he said.

“We’ve got a regular customer and her granddad who used to dine there; her great granddad used to dine at Collinson’s Cafe and she had photographs from when he used to be there as a young chap.

“There was an elderly couple and [the woman] used to say that she used to go to collinson's cafe when she was a child and had beans on toast which was her go-to [meal].

“We get quite a lot of that. It's really nice that there are generations within the city and there's a building that means so much to people and it's given everybody a purpose to come back and enjoy it in its true roots.”

Finding the right building was crucial to the success of the business and in 2022 after some exploration, they were ‘blown away’ by the big central dome on King Edward’s Street.

So far, there are restaurants in York, founded in 2018, and Manchester, founded in 2024.

The customer demand has encouraged them to expand and they are planning on opening another in Liverpool next year.

“Leeds has really shaped the way that we changed the style of our food, the style of our service, the style of our offering,” Darioush said.

“We’re really adapting to what the people of a bigger city were looking for, whereas York’s very touristy.

“We found when we came to Leeds that people wanted that nice place to have leisurely lunch, those after work drinks and there was much more of an offering.

“We opened in Manchester over a year ago and now we've got plans to open in Liverpool in spring 2027.”

Cut and Craft has a dedicated hallway filled with artefacts, images and information around its Titanic connection.

“We named one of our private dining rooms the Wallace Harley Suite to keep that memory alive,” he said.

“We've also dedicated a full viewing platform and as we've now merged the two sides together there's a balcony that overlooks [the city].

“Prior to having access to the old Paul Smith Unit we never had access up there as part of that build, we actually knocked through and managed to create a corridor.

“Now there is a viewing platform for all of our customers where they can see how the two sides are now connected.

“As you walk down that walkway we've dedicated a whole wall of sort of artefacts, images and information around the Titanic, Wallace Hartley, the building itself, so that our customers know that they're part of the fascinating history of what we describe as one of the most iconic buildings in the city.”