THE GLOVER December 2011 - The Worshipful Company of Glovers

Past Assistant David Bennett
reports that persisting recessionary
conditions in the industrial sector
in both domestic and European
markets, combined with UK public
sector cut-backs, especially within
the police service and the Ministry
of Defence, continue to pose
serious trading challenges for the
British glove trade. Within the UK
police service, which has become
an increasingly competitive
market, cost rather than quality
and protection has become the
decisive factor for procurement
officers, whilst within the MoD
cuts in both budgets and
administrative personnel have left
manufacturers speculating about
the volume and timing of any
future business. As a result of lack
of stocks in MoD central stores,
suppliers are now receiving orders
from individual units and/or being
asked to ship direct to theatre.
Once again this winter we shall
be delivering over 4,000 pairs of
gloves to rough sleepers and the
marginalised of London. In theory
we distribute enough gloves to
reach all of London’s homeless,
including those distributed during
the Crisis at Christmas week. We
support an outreach group for
those living on the streets in the City
itself, as well as day centres in
Bermondsey, the East End and
Victoria (for the incessant stream of
Poles and other east Europeans
coming into the bus station, only to
find their promised jobs are cruelly
non-existent or utterly degrading).
London’s homeless are increasing
in number and changing. The
“dossers” of the past are largely in
care, the ex-soldiers increasingly
taken under the wing of their own
charities (some of whom we
support) and there has been an
influx of A10 accession country
males in their twenties and thirties,
skilled and wanting to work but
Fourteen
GLOVE TRADE NEWS
His own company, Bennett
Safetywear Limited based in
Liverpool, has been fortunate in
being able to mitigate some of
the effects of difficult trading
conditions in Europe by exporting
its products to markets outside
Europe. Despite the recent turmoil
in the region, exports to industrial
end-users in North Africa in
particular have grown over the
past twelve months, whilst in a
classic “coals to Newcastle “case,
it has even managed to secure
orders for several of its top of the
range products from the Far
East, including the police in both
Hong Kong and mainland
China. Exports now account for
approximately 25% of turnover.
Following the closure last year
of its manufacturing operation
in St. Helens, the company
is now recruiting additional
manufacturing personnel for its
factory in Liverpool.
WARM HANDS THIS WINTER
needing help to overcome still
almost impossible bureaucratic
hurdles. In London you need to be
earning £18,000 a year to be better
off than on full benefits. Glovers will
form their own conclusions about
this, but in 10 years in this business
I have yet to find anyone who is not
willing to work, although many are
unable.
A creative use of gardening gloves
is made by a project in Shoreditch.
Refugees with severe trauma
symptoms find solace in gardening
but do not always have the presence
of mind to avoid injuring themselves
whilst pruning and cutting. Our
gloves provide this protection.
I cannot think of a better link
between glove making and charity
than the Glovers’ homeless project.
Thank you for your continuing
support.
Liveryman
Charles Stokes
THE FLETCHING
GLOVER
Fletching is a picturesque village in
Sussex some two miles from the
National Trust’s Sheffield Park gardens.
Its parish church is Norman in origin and
contains a memorial which should
interest the Glovers’ Company. Fixed to
the wall of the south transept is a plain
stone with modest brass decorations at
top and bottom, namely two lines of
inscription and a small representation
of a pair of gloves. The inscription is in
the abbreviated Latin used in midfifteenth
century monuments and,
translated, says:
Here lies the body of Peter
Denot, Glover
On whose soul may God have
mercy. Amen
According to the panel next to the
memorial Peter Denot took part in
Jack Cade’s Rebellion. Cade led a
Kentish Revolt in 1450 against high
taxes and the inept government of
Henry VI but after some initial success
Londoners turned against the rebels and
Cade was hunted down and killed at
Heathfield. Peter Denot and other men
of Fletching were pardoned for their part
in the revolt and deeds show that Denot
lived in the area for several years after
the rebellion.
Past Master John Wood
THE GLOVER December 2011