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

shoes, reaching a sum of fifty thousand pounds in 1851. The number of
imported boot fronts passed from 110,000 pairs in 1841 to 547,000 in 1851.
The import of leather pieces rather than finished boots was due to the high duty
applied to the boot. From table 6.1 (p. 253) we can observe how the revision of
the duty on boots and shoes of 1842 decreased the duty up to 3/4 of its value. For
men's boots, however, the reduction was less than ½ of the duty. Thus the
import of French boot fronts was partially a substitute for importing French
boots made in their entirety.88 The second reason to import boot fronts instead
of finished boots was due to the reputation of the British sole leather. 89 English
shoemakers did not excel in operations such as turning the front piece: "take up
one of our boot-fronts so prepared, and compare it with a front coming from
France, and the difference is perceptible as lamentable. How stiff, how dead,
and how forced is the one; and how easy, moist, and elastic the other". 9° On the
other hand, English producers were competent in cutting and closing while
French were good in making lasts and in moulding.9'
French boots could be something different from imported finished boots or
imported boot fronts used in London to produce boots. During the 1840s there
were in London a few French bootmakers, such as A. Robert, who were famous
for their high quality boots. However it was a very small and upper class
market that only minimally explains the high quantities of imported boot fronts.
In the case of boot production it is difficult to say if it was a French product, or
a British product in a French style. 92 This confusion was already present in the
1830s and 1840s when many shops in the West End were advertising the latest
Paris fashion in boots and shoes, referring to a particular style rather than the
importation of shoes from France.93
88 Another hypothesis on the import of boot fronts instead of finished boots concerns the cost
of transport that is much lower in the first case. See G.B. Sutton, 'The Marketing of Ready
Made Footwear', cit., p. 94.
89 J.H. Clapham, An Economic History of Modem Britain (Cambridge, 1926-39), vol. ii, p.
15.
° J.D. Dacres, The boot and shoe trade of France, cit., p. 32.
' Ibid., p. 35.
Boots did not have any producers' labels.
J. Swami, Shoemaking, cit., p. 15.
288