History

Leeds Chamber's history dates back to 1785 when the original Leeds Chamber of Commerce was founded, however this faded out in 1793 to such an extent that when the current Chamber was founded on 23^rd April 1851 it had no knowledge of its predecessor.

This 'new Chamber' grew out of the committee set up to organise the Leeds contribution to the Great Exhibition at Crystal Palace and the West Riding Trade Protection Society and has been in continuous existence ever since.

Notably Leeds Chamber was one of the founders of what is now the British Chambers of Commerce in 1860.

Leeds merged with York and North Yorkshire Chamber in October 2008 and became the region's largest business representative organisation. In the same year we acquired the assets of Leeds Media.

As well as providing products and services for its members the  Chamber acts as a lobbying organisation to help ensure the political and legislative climate are there to encourage economic growth. To engage with Government the Chamber movement carries out a quarterly economic survey of its members and the very first such survey was carried out in Leeds in 1964.

For many years now we've had a close working relationship with Leeds City Council and this remains strong now. It was in 1990 we came together to form the Leeds Initiative to foster public and private sector partnership working.

In 2011 the Chamber acquired the IT and telecoms network, techmesh and has merged the activities of Financial Leeds into our operations.

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