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

Tawing, performed by fell mongers, is a process based on the use of alum and salt
and produces a stronger leather, mainly used for shoe uppers and internal linings.
Cattle, deer and horse hides are normally tanned. Tanning, performed by tanners, is
a process based on the immersion of hides for protracted periods in bark solutions.
Tanned leather can be subsequently refined by currying it. This process, performed
by curriers, provides the bulk of the leather used by shoemakers and
saddlemakers.' 3 Finally, leather-sellers appeared in the mid-eighteenth century.
They were defined by Campbell as dealers in skins and hides, normally tanned.
Their function as middlemen between leather producers and shoemakers, was to
buy treated skins or hides from the former and sell small pieces to shoemakers who
could not afford to buy an entire hide or skin:
They cut out their Leather in Soles and Upper-Leathers, that is, in Bits that answer
those Uses, according to the several Sizes, and sell them to the necessitous Shoe-
Maker.'4
Not all leather sellers were similar. They were distinguished in two broad
categories. On the one hand there were 'leather merchants' (commonly called
leather sellers) who were buying the leather from the manufacturer (currier, tanner,
dresser or fell-monger) and were selling it on their own account; on the other hand,
there was a second category of middlemen called 'leather factors' who were selling
leather on behalf of a manufacturer, normally on commission.'5
Tanners, curriers and oil dressers could exercise their trade only under a licence
given by the Board of Excise, and renewed annually. The data available,for the
beginning of the nineteenth century shows a particular feature of the leather-
producing market - its concentration (table 1.1).16 Not more than 3,500 producers
13 j Statham, 'The location and development of London's leather manufacturing industry since
the early nineteenth century' (MA thesis in Geography, University of London, 1965), P. 46.
' R. Campbell, The complete tradesman (London, 1747), p. 217. See also chapter 2 on the early
eihteenth-century disputes between tanners, curriers, shoemakers and cordwainers.
J. Statham, 'The location and development of London's leather manufacturing industry', cit., p.
44. The difference between a 'leather merchant' and a 'leather factor' was also the scale of the
activity being a leather factor a small dealer.
16
T. Martin, The mechanical arts (London, 1813), p. 257. They were obliged to specify every
room in which leather was deposited, as well as vats and tubs in which it was soaked. The premises
were liable to inspection by the Excise Officers and, if the skin did not have the duty mark stamped
by the tanner, it was seized.
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