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Shoemaking is a subject about which most people are blissfully ignorant although, with a little encouragement, they will complain about the shoes they wear. Before the 1920s, however, everyone knew the local cobbler, a worthy representative of the 'gentle craft', who repaired shoes and made them look like new for a few pence. This book tells the story of shoemaking from the days of the isolated shoemaker, who made a shoe right through, to the groups of men who worked with apprentices in the larger towns and served the customer direct. It shows the growth of mass production in the seventeenth century, with a recognisable factory system and warehouses in the cities.

In 1725 Defoe dressed his typical Englishman in shoes from Northhampton, a town which became synonymous with shoemaking. Finally the books shows the late development of mechanisation in the 1850s and the rigidity it imposed. Now that over 50 per cent of the world's shoes are made in China, the future is uncertain, though keeping armies suitably shod has usually saved Britain's shoe industry.

Softcover; A5; 32pp

About the Author:

June Swann MBE, was Keeper of the Boot and Shoe Collection, Northampton Museum, until 1988. She was born in Northampton in the days when it was still proud of its staple trade and known throughout the world for boots and shoes. She did her college study on the town's boot and shoe industry and, after a brief period in a shoe factory office, began work at Northampton Museum in 1950. One of her first jobs was cataloguing the shoe collection (then the largest in Britain, now the largest in the world) and reorganising its storage. She was given special responsibility for the collection in 1955 and has become fascinated by the whole history of shoes and shoemaking, with enormous respect for the men and woman of the 'gently craft'. She has published a bibliography and books on the history of shoe fashions and associated subjects, the last a major work in 2001 on shoe fashions, illustrated with Scandinavian examples. She is now a consultant on the history of shoes and shoemaking.