On Sun, 2 Jan 2022 at 15:46:20, Jenny M Benson
I have frequently come across both Bootmakers and Shoemakers (and
maybe sometimes the different words describing the same person) but
to-day, in the 1881 Census, I found a man who described himself as a
Shoemaker and his wife as a Boot Binder. It made me wonder whether
shoes do not also have to be bound - whatever the process may be.
Lots of fascinating discussion - but could she just be a book binder?
It could be, John (I didn't think of that) but "boot binder" was a
proper profession, and it mentioned in the link I posted above.
Tony
There is an 1850 description of a shoe/boot binder documented by Henry
Mayhew: Labour and the Poor, 1849-50; Henry Mayhew - Letter XXXV
https://www.victorianlondon.org/mayhew/mayhew35.htm
This is just the first part of the full letter:
For the present the shoemakers shall speak for themselves. One fact,
however, the reader will not fail to perceive - that the distress of the
workmen at the East-end is in no way referable to the importation of
French boots into this country. The evil can be ascribed to nothing else
than the insatiable greed of those who employ them. The slop shoemakers
are, if possible, in a worse state than the slop tailors.
As an exponent of the horrors of this system, let me first give the
narrative of a poor shoebinder - a widow woman - a struggling,
industrious, honest creature, to whom I was directed as a fair specimen
of the class. It will be seen that I found the poor creature literally
starving - and that, after toiling night and day to support herself. She
was without a home, and was indebted to the sympathy of friends - as
poor as herself - for her share of her wretched abode where I visited
her. I never yet saw so much patience under so much suffering, nor such
benevolence amid such privation: -
"I have got no home, sir," she said. "My work wouldn't allow me to
pay rent - no, that it wouldn't at the price we have now. I live with
this good woman and her husband. The rent is half-a-crown a week, and
they allow me to live with them rent free. We all live in this one room
together - there are five of us, four sleep in one bed; that is the man
and the wife and the two children, and I lie on the floor. If it wasn't
for them I must go to the workhouse; out of what little learn I couldn't
possibly pay rent. I bind shoes, or boots generally; but boot work is
not to be had at this time of the year. I do the same for the shoe as
the boot-closer does for the boot - that, is I prepare the upper for the
maker to sew the sole to. I have 15d. a dozen for binding what are
termed slippers. By a slipper I do not mean a loose easy shoe to be worn
when the ordinary walking ones are off, but any kind of cheap shoe -
that is what is termed a slipper in the trade. A shoe we call a tie shoe
- one that ties on the instep. For binding these I get 1s. 6d. a dozen,
and for the slippers 1s. 3d. I work for a slop shoe warehouse. I can
only bind five pair of slippers in a day often hours, and to do that
much I must sit close. My average earnings in a day I calculate at 6 ¼d.
I have sometimes done half a dozen, but then I have worked a great deal
by candlelight, and it doesn't pay for that. In a week I can make 3s.
1½d. by sitting close to my work - getting only up to my meals, and not
being long over them. The way in which I take my meals generally is what
I call worrying the victuals. I get regular employment. I have been
twenty-two years at the business. When I first began I could earn 2s. a
day, or 12s. a week, easily, by myself, and do for my family as well. To
sit the hours that I do now I could earn 14s. a week well then. These
slippers that used to be 3½d. a pair binding, are now come to 1¼d.; the
shoes that used to be 4d. a pair are 1½d. The boots that we were paid
1s. for binding have come down to 5d., and extra work put into them as
well - the closer's work is put upon the binder's work now - that is to
say, the binder has now to stab the leather goloshe onto the uppers' of
the women's boots. Formerly this was done by the closer. The binder at
that time had merely to stitch the uppers together, and after that they
were given out to the closer to stab on the leather goloshe. Fourteen or
fifteen years ago this was altered, and the binders had to learn the
stabbing and buy the tools to do it with, without any increase in the
price. Before that I could have bound a pair of boots in three hours;
but afterwards it took me nearly double the time to finish them. I never
heard the cause of the alteration, but I know it took place immediately
after a great strike among the women's men. The working men were forced
to give in, and the employers immediately reduced the wages. The first
reduction that took place with me was about 17 years ago, and since that
time wages have been regularly going down. The employers always take
advantage of the winter to cut something off our pay, saying they don't
want the goods till the spring. The excuse is always that the trade is
slack in the winter months, and they tell us if we don't like to do it,
we may leave it. There's plenty, they say, that wants employment. I
never knew the wages to rise in the spring when business is brisk -
never once in the whole of the 22 years that I have been connected with
the trade - that is the policy of the employers. When I first began the
business there were but very few slop shoe warehouses. We mostly worked
for the shops direct; this, indeed, was the practise for the first
fourteen years that I was at the trade. After that time the slop shoe
warehouses kept increasing very fast, and they supplied the shops
instead of ourselves. The shopkeepers said they couldn't make them up as
cheap as they could buy them of the warehouses; and so the manufacture
passed from the shopkeepers to the warehouses. I only know one shop now
that makes up the articles - formerly almost all manufactured their own
goods. You see, there are two profits to be got instead of one, and of
those the second profit comes out of the pockets of such as we who can't
even afford a home. I don't think the number of binders has increased so
much as the wages have decreased of late years; indeed within the last
15 years the trade has not been worth putting a person to; but I fancy
the lowering of the wages is to be accounted for solely by the masters
taking advantage of the slack in the winter to cut down our pay. If
there is any increase of hands it has risen from the low prices paid to
the shoemakers, for now they are obliged to put all their family to work
at some branch or other of their trade.
and more, if you search for "binder", on the boot and shoe makers in
Labour and the Poor, 1849-50; Henry Mayhew - Letter XXXII
https://www.victorianlondon.org/mayhew/mayh