Norwich Boot & Shoe Industry

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There have always been shoemakers in Norwich to provide, at the very least, for local needs. Recent excavations on the site of the Courts at Whitefriars Bridge have revealed fragments of soles, uppers and triangular off-cuts of leather, clearly the waste from shoemaking, dating from the 10th and 11th centuries. Sufficiently complete examples have been found to show that some were made as turnshoes, that is made in the initial stages inside out. Centuries later Norwich was to become famous for the manufacture of light, supple ladies' turnshoes.

Until recent times every village in Norfolk would have had a shoemaker providing for the immediate locality. Traditionally, boots were bought with the extra money earned at harvest time in preparation for the coming winter. In William White's Directory of Norfolk (1845) Guist, Hemsby, Hockering and Wiggenhall St. Mary Magdalen are shown to have one shoemaker, Garboldisham three, and Bawdeswell, population then 582, four. Those who were wealthy might travel into Norwich and the very rich might buy shoes from the fashionable London makers. By the 1830s there were even shoe shops with branches; the London firm of Bowtell had a branch in Brighton and one at 1 Davey Place, Norwich. It was also possible to buy boots and shoes by sending measurements to London makers, the goods being sent to the customer by carrier's wagon.

At the turn of the 18th and 19th century the beginnings of the later great industry could be seen. James Smith had established a business in 1792; the factory stood on the site of what is now City Hall. In 1907 the firm moved into a new factory on Crome Road but still continued some work in their city centre factory up until 1935. After a number of name changes the firm is now Start-rite which specialises in children's shoes. It is sometimes stated that James Smith of Norwich was the first manufacturer to produce shoes ready made in various sizes and that previously all shoes had been made to fit the individual. In fact Northampton makers had been fulfilling contracts for the Parliamentary Army in the 17th century where boots could not possibly have been made for the individual soldier. Mid 18th century trade cards show that London makers could supply ready-made shoes which might be bought in their shops or despatched to other parts of the country. In 1799 David Soman, an emigrant from France began in Norwich, not a boot and shoe firm, but a cap making business but soon began making shoes. In 1853 the business passed into the hands of Soman's son-in-law, Philip Haldinstein; over the next eighty years it grew considerably. The factory filled a large part of the block from Queen's Street into Prince's Street; most of it is now demolished and replaced with other buildings but the four storey building, now called Seebohm House, on the corner of Queen's Street, remains. In 1933 the firm became part of the Swiss footwear manufacturing group, Bally.

It is not clear why this industry grew to supply more than local needs. It is not that Norfolk produced large quantities of suitable leather. There were tanneries in Norwich mostly in the Heigham Street area either side of the Wensum, upstream from New Mills. There were five tanners listed in Chase's Norwich Directory for 1783, all of them in this area. Leather also came from outside the city, for example from Whitwell near Reepham where there had been a tannery since at least the 17th century. It is unlikely that these tanneries could provide for all the needs of the footwear industry as it then existed. Chase recorded 45 boot and shoe makers as well as 10 patten makers. A patten was a wooden soled over-shoe with a metal frame underneath which raised the wearer above the muddy street. There were in addition other leather workers, for example, saddlers, horse collar makers and trunk makers. James Smith advertised in the Norfolk Chronicle for 14th May 1803 that he had "connections with some of the first Manufactories of Leather in London" and that he was in consequence able to supply "Kid Skins, Fancy Upper Leathers, and Turner's incomparable Blacking Cakes, wholesale".

Norwich was in the mid 18th century a prosperous textile manufacturing city providing in addition, goods and services, including footwear, for a very large surrounding region. During the 19th century the business acumen of the small number of manufacturers developed it into an industry with international markets. Local investment played its part - in 1836 Robert Tillyard was working as a boot and shoemaker in Elm Hill, ten years later James Warnes Howlett, a North Norfolk farmer, put a huge sum of money into his business, thus enabling Tillyard & Howlett to build a large factory off St. George's Plain, which by 1909 had expanded to such a degree that it was at that time the largest footwear factory in the country. By 1830 the textile industry was in a distressed state and by 1850 the numbers employed had dropped enormously as opposed to the newer footwear industry which was well established by 1860 and where the numbers were increasing.

In the mid 19th century factories, only some of the processes were actually undertaken in the factory. Much of the work was carried out as outwork, either by individual shoemakers or by what were known as garret masters who employed a few people in small workshops mostly in the area of Norwich on the north side of the River Wensum. The factories had a 'wicket', that is a gate or counter, where the work in various stages was drawn out and returned. The boots might be taken out for closing, that is sewing the uppers together, be returned to the factory to be matched with the correct soles and go back out to be stretched over wooden lasts to give them their shape. Then the boots might come back into the factory or be sent out to yet another tradesman for the uppers to be sewn to the soles; they could then remain in the factory for the final stages or go out once more to a specialist in the finishing processes. The streets of this part of Norwich must have been constantly busy with people, often children, carrying boots and shoes in various states of completion, to and fro. Gradually more and more processes became mechanised. Sewing machines for sewing uppers were first introduced into Norwich in about 1856 and stouter machines for sewing the uppers to soles in about 1870. One of the last processes to be mechanised was that of lasting, a machine was patented in the USA in 1883 and introduced into Norwich in about 1900 by Edwards and Holmes who still manufacture shoes on Drayton Road in Norwich.

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