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

5.3.1 The financing ofproduction
Subcontracting provided a simple means to achieve complex forms of
production. We should be aware that its existence was not only linked to the
dimension and expansion of the market. Financial, economic and physical
constraints are important elements in explaining the existence and survival of
un-centralised forms of production. Subcontracting was already common in the
metropolis in the late seventeenth-century as demonstrated by shoemakers'
inventories. By the eighteenth century new forms of externalisation of
production were involving the provinces. The account books of John Edwards, a
shoemaker of Wrexham in Denbigh, Wales, for the period 1740 to 1757 are
unique documents because they show extensive orders from London
shoemakers. John Edwards was probably working with at least another 3 or 4
workmen, although the speed with which he was able to deliver goods could
suggest that he was hiring men in times of high demand. He was producing from
900 to 1,800 pairs of shoes a year (fig. 5.3). His business was very much
influenced by orders from the capital and there were therefore seasonal
variations that corresponded to the seasonality of purchase (fig. 5.4).
2000
1800
1600
1400
1200
I000
800
600
400
200
0
Figure 5.3 - John Edwards - Number of shoes produced,
1751-1757
1751 1752
I'RU, C 1Oo. IU.
JTI
'753
1754 1755 1756 1757
46 CLRO, Orphans Court, mv. 1459 (19 February 1678/9). Mr. Peck, a heel maker, appears as a
supplier in both mv, 1297 and 1481.
220
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