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

few hours. The contract at which these shoes are delivered to the government is
6s. 6d. per pair, being at least 2s. less than what was paid previously for an
unequal and cobbled article.113
Brunel's factory in Battersea produced 100 pairs of shoes a day at a price one
third cheaper than his competitors'. More difficult to know is the standard of
quality of products suitable for the army, but probably impossible to sell in the
civilian market. The factory was considered as an engineering achievement,
more than a real industrial path for shoemaking. Brunel lacked any sense of
business and his production was good only to a mass market. When the
Napoleonic wars ended, he was left with 80,000 pairs of shoes that he was not
able to sell on the civilian market. Only half of the stock was finally bought by
the Army at a discounted price. Brunel's factory failed."4
The analysis of patents of invention for the period 1770 to 1852 shows how
Mounfield's analysis did not take into account the particular nature of
shoemaking invention. 115 As we can see from table 5.10 most inventions
concerned buckles and fastenings. Cut and structure and different apparatus such
as clogs and heels were at the centre of innovation in shoes. The necessity was to
improve the construction of a pair of shoes through its elements rather than
through a revision of the productive process. Most of these patents relate to
product rather than process innovation.
If we look at manuals, for instance, we can see how from the eighteenth to the
late nineteenth century there is a progression in the number of tools used.'16
However the organisation and the division of work remained fairly constant over
a period of nearly 200 years. A further element has to be considered: the
113 Cit. in J.H. Thornton, 'Brunel the bootmaker', Journal of Boot and Shoe Institutions, XVI -
8 (1969), pp. 171-2.
114
McNeil, ed., Encyclopaedia of the history of technology (London, 1990), p. 854.
We should also consider the constraints in patenting and the limits imposed by the English
patent system. See HI. Dutton, The patent system and inventive activity during the industrial
revolution, 1750-1852 (Manchester, 1984) and C. MacLeod, Inventing the industrial revolution:
the English patent system, 1660-1800 (Cambridge, 1988).
116 For a description of the instruments used in shoemaking see R. Holmes, The academy of
Armory (Chester, 1688), vol. iii, pp. 291-3; Diderot & d'Alembert, Encyclopédie; ou
dictionnaire raissonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers (Paris, 175 1-65), vol ii, pp. 240-1 and
vol. iii, pp. 260-1; F.A. de Garsault, Art du codonnier (Paris, 1767); A. Rees, The cyclopaedia;
or universal dictionary of Arts, Sciences and Literature (London, 1820), vol. iv, pp. 454-62;
Nouvelle encyclopédie des arts et métiers. Art de la chaussure (Paris, 1824); J. Morn, Manuel
245