A HISTORY OF NORTHAMPTONSHIRE 



pairs of shoes and 6oo pairs of boots for the sol- 

 diers there, which they were forced to send to 

 London with a great convoy of horse whereby 

 they were ;{^i,ooo out of purse. The House of 

 Commons hy order of 17 January, 1648, had 

 authorized the committee of the Goldsmiths' 

 Hall to sell the said estate and pay petitioners. 

 In order thereto the county committeeon direction 

 of the late Committee for Compounding, let the 

 said estate to petitioners for ;^400 a year for three 

 years ended at Michaelmas last, but ;{^2o8 Js. 6d. 

 was still due to them.' 



In 1648 a further supply of shoes was fur- 

 nished to Cromwell's army. 



On I August the committee of both houses 

 resolved 



'To write to the Committee of the Army acquainting 

 them that the Committee of Northants have furnished 

 the forces with Lieut. Genl. Cromwell with 2,500 pr 

 of shoes upon condition that they might have the 

 assessments of that County.' 



The letter was sent on the following day.^ 



Again, in 1689 we find Northampton sending 

 boots to Ireland, this time to William Ill's army. 

 William Harbord, who was paymaster to the 

 forces, writes to the king under date 28 Septem- 

 ber of that year, and tells him many of the army 

 had neither clothes to their backs nor shoes to 

 their feet ; ' we hope that there are come over the 

 4,000 which I bespoke at Northampton.' On 

 23 October he writes again — 



' 4,000 pair of shoes have been distributed which I 

 caused to be made in Northampton. At first Lieut. 

 Gen. Douglas said they were the best and cheapest he 

 ever met with, but now he does not like them, though 

 all the English Colonels do.' ' 



Throughout the eighteenth century shoes for 

 the army ■* appear to have been made in North- 

 ampton, and the local paper, the Northampton 

 Mercury, the first number of which appeared in 

 1720, contains many allusions (chiefly in early 

 years in the form of advertisements) to the trade, 

 which was evidently growing in magnitude. 



The first advertisement relative to the trade 

 appears in volume viii, 29 October, 1727. 



'John Hockliffe, shoemaker, who lived in the 

 Women's Market in the Drapery in Northampton, is 

 removed to his own house in the Merold, near the 

 Milstones at the Bearward St. End, where you may 

 be kindly used for Boots and Shoes and Clogs' at 

 reasonable rates. ' 



' Cal. of Com. for Compounding, p. 432, 1806. 



' Cal. S.P. Dom. 1648-9, 227, 230. 



' S.P. Dom. William and Mar)-, 1689-90. 



* ' Last Saturday morning 1 ,000 pairs of shoes were 

 sent from this town to the army in Staffordshire.' 

 Northampton Mercury, Dec. 9, 1745. 



' The clog was an article to be worn, sometimes 

 over a light boot in bad weather, a forerunner of the 

 rubber overshoe, sometimes in place of a boot. It had 

 generally a wooden sole with a leather forepart and 

 heel piece. A survival may be seen to-day in use in 



In 1 761, William Marriot, patten and heel- 

 maker of Kettering, advertises for a journeyman. 



On 19 November, 1733, is the following, 

 * Arthur Lewis, Last Maker, St. Giles' Street, 

 near the Square, where shoemakers or others 

 may be furnished with lasts of all sorts, with 

 shoe trees and boot trees.' The 'last' is a block 

 of wood shaped to the form of a foot and is used 

 as a 'core' upon which the boot is made. In 

 early days the cordwainer would make his own 

 lasts, and Arthur Lewis may have been a pioneer 

 in making a separate business of supplying these 

 necessary articles. Whether he prospered or no 

 we cannot tell, but the British workman, and 

 perhaps especially the shoemaker, is conservative 

 in his methods, which fact a later advertisement 

 of April, 1765, seems to illustrate: 'For sale, 

 stock in trade of a Last Maker, William Catterns 

 in the Drapery, Northampton (only last maker in 

 Northampton).' 



It is evident too, that besides army work, 

 Northampton had been employed in making shoes 

 for exportation abroad. An allusion will be found 

 in the Northampton Mercury of 8 November, 

 1740, to the decline of that branch of the trade. 



On 16 February, 1767, is the first allusion to 

 shoemaking in Wellingborough, when S. Shar- 

 man, junior, required journeymen. E. Bradley 

 of the same town also wanted men in 1775. 

 There was a great increase in the demand for 

 labour at this time, no doubt owing to the 

 American War and the demand for boots for the 

 army — Raunds, Long Buckby, Thornby, Ket- 

 tering, Cold Ashby, and Daventry all wanting 

 shoemakers, showed that the trade was spreading 

 into the country. 



In Kettering the army shoe trade was entered 

 by Mr. Thomas Gotch in 1778. Mr. Gotch 

 was a banker, currier, and leather-dresser, as well 

 as shoe manufacturer, and is generally credited 

 with originating the wholesale shoe trade in 

 Kettering, which, however, did not begin to 



stable yards by those engaged in carriage washing. In 

 Lancashire the clog has long been used in place of a 

 boot. The upper leathers are fastened to the wooden 

 sole in the same manner as the leather is secured to 

 the wood in a pair of bellows. The clog must not be 

 confounded with the patten (the word is from the 

 French /j/;«, and not as Gay suggests, ' The Patten 

 now supports each frugal dame, which from the blue- 

 eyed Patt)- takes its name.') which was a commoner 

 article consisting of a wooden sole to be fastened 

 to the shoe with cords or a leather strap. It had 

 no leather toe or heel-piece. Two specimens of 

 fifteenth-century date may be seen in the mediaeval 

 room at the British Museum, and in the Guildhall 

 Museum, London, are a wooden clog sole with leather 

 hinge, and a Icather-soled clog with heel and heel-strap 

 of same period, and a leather clog with long pointed 

 toe of earlier date. In Bethnal Green and North- 

 ampton Museums are twenty diagrams by Miss F. N. 

 Harley illustrating various kinds of boots and shoes 

 and pattens of different periods. 



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