The Boot and Shoe Trades in London and Paris in the Long Eighteenth Century

Furze at 65 Fleet Street occupied the ground floor of a late Georgian building.
The shop window was of a classic round shape. Boots and shoes were displayed
in a simple way. More common was to display boots and shoes hanged as in the
case of R. Jones of Whitechapel Road (illustration 4.13). If long boots were
hanged individually, short ones were normally hanged upon a half elliptical tool.
The shop window could be divided into small cases where to set a pair of shoes
or boots.
The display techniques used in the nineteenth century seem to be more
aggressive. In the eighteenth century the street environment was carefully
avoided. This was a sign of refinement underlying the cultural difference
between a shop and a market or a fair. In the early nineteenth century the shop is
again expressing its busy activity in synchrony with the street life. The product
could be exhibited also outdoors: 'Steel little boot shop', for instance, had boots
and shoes labelled with prices directly on the street. The shop-window used the
lower part for individually priced products (first quality) and the highest part for
boots at 3s. 6d. and shoes from 2d. to 2s. 6d. (illustration 4.14).
4.3.2 Geography and specialisation of London boot and shoe shops
As we saw, not all shoe shops were similar or aimed to serve the same type of
clients. It is generally accepted that for the entire metropolis facilities for credit,
ease of access to wholesalers and warehousemen (with the corollary of carrying
small stocks, an important point for those with little capital) and the huge market
made London the paradise of the small shopkeepers. 38 As the population grew
constantly during the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, so did the number
of shops in the capital, increasing "the opulence of multitudes of merchants,
traders and shopkeepers".39
See C. Walsh, 'The newness of the department store: a view from the eighteenth century', in
G. Crossick and J. Jaumain, eds., Cathedrals of consumption. The European department store,
1 850-1939 (Aldershot, 1999), P. 64.
38 O.H.K. Spate, 'Geographical aspects of the industrial evolution of London till 1850',
Geographical Journal, XCII (1938), p. 431.
The picture of London for 1813 (London, 1813), p. 86.
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