INDUSTRIES 



develop to any extent till nearly a century later 

 (1864). 



It is true that an advertisement for a journey- 

 man heelmaker for Kettering (which presup- 

 poses bootmaking) appears in 1761, but the 

 heels may have been sold elsewhere. Heel- 

 making seems to have been one of the first sub- 

 divisions of the trade. W. Hilary, heelmaker, 

 Northampton, often advertises for journeymen 

 heelmakers about this time, and it would appear 

 that heels were now purchased ready made 

 for attaching to the boot. They were most 

 probably made of wood.' Wooden heels on 

 women's shoes are met with in the seventeenth 

 century. 



In 1792 Mr. Cary, of Wellingborough, re- 

 quired ' 500 shoemakers on military work at 

 11^. per pair and continual employ.'^ From 

 this time till the end of the Peninsular War 

 there appear: to have been considerable increase 

 in the trade. It is stated that Mr. Spencer 

 Percival interested himself in obtaining contracts 

 for Northampton. He was deputy recorder and 

 afterwards recorder of the town for some years, 

 and its representative in Parliament from 1796 

 to 18 1 2, when he was assassinated in the lobby 

 of the House. 



The growth of the trade is illustrated by the 

 increased number of shoemakers with votes. 

 In the election of 1768, out of 1,149 voters 169 

 were shoemakers; while at that of 18 16, out of 

 1,287 voters they numbered 310.' 



By 1779 it is worth the while of London 

 tradesmen to advertise in a Northampton paper ; 



' Thos. Smith & Co., shoemakers in the Borough 

 High Street, London, to any shoemakers that make 

 shoes for the London trade mentioning every sort he 

 makes and his lowest price and what quantities he 

 can send may depend on orders directly.' 



In 1783:— 



' A person wants to have a few Men's wax flats 

 made in Northampton where wages are reasonable. 

 Apply Mr. Nicholls, Bishopsgate Without, London.' 



Whether he obtained his wish does not appear, 

 but if so he probably inaugurated the system 

 called ' basket work,' in which leather ready cut, 

 and later ' uppers ' ready closed, together with 

 leather for the bottoming, were sent from 

 London or elsewhere to Northampton to be 

 made up into boots. There is at least one firm 

 doing this at the present time, and it was not 

 uncommon in the latter half of the nineteenth 

 century. For many years Northampton manu- 

 facturers have had a lower grade boot than could 



' The fact that Wm. Hilary was also a lastmaker 

 points to this. 



- No army boot could be made at such a price. 

 These ' militaries ' were probably a cheap imitation, 

 of inferior material and workmanship ; Mr. Cary 

 perhaps really required half a dozen hands. 



' Hall MS. Northampton Born. Rec. ii, 505 et seq. 



be made in the town manufactured in the neigh- 

 bouring villages by this means. 



From the foregoing and other advertisements 

 not otherwise of special interest, it is plain that 

 shoemakers in Northampton were prepared to 

 work for less wages than their fellow craftsmen 

 in London. This appears always to have been 

 the case, for as late as 1872 surprise is expressed 

 by a London writer at the lowness of wages in 

 Northampton.* 



For making an army boot the price was I2d. 

 in 1808, and this probably represented a sub- 

 stantial advance on the price paid a few years 

 previously, as would be natural considering the 

 increased demand for labour. In the making of 

 a boot a considerable amount of skill was ne- 

 cessar}', only to be acquired by years of training 

 and instruction. Apprenticeship to the craft 

 was for seven years,' but it was supposed to re- 

 quire twelve to turn out a real craftsman. This 

 being so, extra labour could not easily be ob- 

 tained, and as a natural consequence wages 

 would rise. As early as 1762 there was issued 

 a ' Proclamation against exercising the craft of 

 Cordwainer without having ser\'ed an appren- 

 ticeship.' ° Even at l%d. per pair the shoe- 

 maker would not be able to earn a large wage. 

 An exceptionally quick man might be able to 

 make two pairs a day, working twelve to four- 

 teen hours and with his wife's help, but the 

 average craft would not do more than a pa:r 

 and a half. The workman had also to supply 

 his own grindery,' tacks, thread, wax, etc., a not 

 inconsiderable item, and of course his 'kit,'* or 

 working tools. 



As the art of making shoes by hand is fast 

 dying out and may soon be a thing of the past, 



' John Delvin, The Shoemaker, London, 1872. 



' Children were bound apprentice at a very early 

 age. In the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth cen- 

 turies, often as early as seven and never older than 

 twelve. Northampton Boro. Rec. ii, 321. 



* Northampton, 9 May, 1 76 1. 



' The materials with which the shoemaker works 

 came to be called grindery in the following way : 

 Formerly, before hemp, flax, wax, and bristles were 

 sold as now in shops set apart for this particular 

 business, the shoemaker not using the peculiar sort of 

 rubbing stone and emery composition which he later 

 used with which to sharpen his knife was in the habit 

 of taking his blade to be ground at the grinder's. The 

 knife-grinder having thus the shoemaker for a regular 

 customer, began in time to add to his usual business 

 the sale of hemp, etc., required by the craft ; hence, 

 his little shop being termed the grindery, everything 

 he sold became known under that name. See James 

 Delvin, The Shoemaker. 



' Anciently and in the old songs of the trade the 

 * kit ' was called St. Hugh's bones. In Stow and in 

 Randle Holmes's Academ'ie of Armorle, 1688, we find 

 this term, as also in the older romance of Crispin and 

 Crispianus, and in the two plays The Shoemaker is 

 a Gentleman and the Shoemaker's Holiday of the 

 beginning of the seventeenth century. James Delvin, 

 The Shoemaker. 



321 



41 



