66 . SCIENTIFIC SURVEY OF LEICESTER AND DISTRICT 
and multiplicity of styles and ‘ fashions’ have influenced methods of 
construction ; more than a dozen different manufacturing methods exist, 
each of which may involve some 150 distinct operations and, at least, 
100 different machines. It is possible in this brief survey to refer only to 
a few of those major operations through which all boots and shoes must 
pass in the process of manufacture. 
The making of the ‘ last’ model has remained a highly skilled craft 
through its defiance of the application of a formula. Its evolution owes 
much to the inventive genius of Leicester firms. ‘Taking account in its 
form of every movement of the foot, to the end that movement shall be 
easy and natural, the last must yet be rigid in the shoe and mobile in 
removal. Dried Canadian maple wood is used. The rough block, 
weighing nine or ten pounds, is first shaped and trimmed until it satisfies 
the necessary conditions. ‘This original is then used as a model in a 
turning lathe for the production of as many as are required. The 
necessary mobility has been attained by dividing the last into two parts, 
while its rigidity in the shoe depends upon the use of suitable devices 
inserted into the V-shaped aperture between the parts. The finished 
product weighs about a pound. 
After last-making comes pattern-cutting, a process which calls for a 
high degree of skill in the correct placing of curves and seams in the upper 
in order to maintain the form of the shoe in wear, and necessitates further 
study of the shape of each part to effect economy in cutting. 
‘ Clicking ’ and ‘ closing ’"—the cutting out and the sewing together of 
the parts of the upper—and the accurate preparation of bottom stock 
are not merely automatic machine processes. While the old hand-sewer 
produced some ten or twenty stitches per minute and the early treadle 
machine about 300, the modern power-driven machine makes 3,000 
stitches per minute, equivalent, in machines fitted with four needles, to 
200 stitches per second—a truly amazing speed, and one which is eloquent 
of the deft touch of the skilful ‘ closer.’ 
But it is in the lasting and making departments that the genius of the 
modern machine finds its fullest expression. Here are machines which 
by means of mechanically operated pincers seize the flat-cut upper, 
stretching and drawing it to conform to the subtle curves of the last, and 
securing it by tacks or staples. Here are machines which imitate at 
high speed the ‘ welting’ methods of the old-time craftsman with awl 
and thread. Here, too, are machines which cut and drive thousands of 
nails a day. Every type of machine known within the industry operates 
in Leicester’s factories. It was in no small degree due to the opposition 
in other parts to the introduction of machinery into factories that so many 
workers from these centres came to Leicester and placed their experience 
and skill at the disposal of local manufacturers. 
The number of boot and shoe manufacturers in Great Britain is esti- 
mated at 950, with about 132,000 employees and an output of 117 million 
pairs per year. The comparatively recent industrialisation of manufacture 
partly explains why the industry is not confined to just one or two large 
centres, but has grown and developed in small towns and villages over a 
wide area. Despite this, Leicester is the greatest shoemaking centre in 
