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

dark colour of the leather produced. Burridge was stating that "the prejudices
against the dark colour in England, will require long time to overcome, for the
Consumers demand bright light colours, but what do the Colour signify after leather
is blacked all over and worn in the dirt?" 53 Burridge's story is symptomatic both of
national differences in leather and in its use, and of the direct competition between
Britain and France in the leather market. In France, much more than in Britain,
attempts to discover new processes for shortening the time of tanning multiplied
during the first part of the nineteenth century. 54 However, there is not much
evidence of mechanisation in leather production until the beginning of the
nineteenth century. We know that in 1814 the leather producing trades were still
un-mechanised and only one of the tanneries in Southwark was using a steam
engine to pump the tanning solution out of the pits.55 Important, ato wa the
introduction of the splitting machine which was able to split horizontally the hide
.3
into two or more layers, all of them usable for shoe uppers. mportan'ere a1sthe
helical blade 1replacing the hand processes of de-hairing.56
1.5.2 Imports and exports
During the eighteenth century the leather market became international. The best
leather reached Europe from Brazil. Argentina, the second Southern American
leather producer was for a brief period commercially dominated by France thanks
to the Spanish grant of Buenos Aires' port in 1710. Following the Treaty of Utrecht
(1713) the commerce was ceded to Britain. 57 France remained a net importer of
hides and leather over the whole of the eighteenth century. In 1786-89 France was
importing tanned leather especially from England and the German States for a total
value of more than one million francs; another 8 million francs of leather (cuirs
verts, seces et sales) was coming from Portugal, Spain, Turkey and the French
" AN, F' 2 2283: 'Letter from John Burridge, Bennet Street, Blackfriars, 28th June 1826'.
AN, F' 2 2286: untitled ms.
W.O. Henderson, industrial Britain under the Regency, cit., p. 148. Some historians have
underlined the nineteenth-century progress in leather production. See W.G. Rimmer, 'Leeds leather
industry in the nineteenth century', Publications of the Thoresby Society, XLVI —2, no. 108 (1957),
pp.1 19-23.
56 JW Waterer, Leather and craftmanship (London, 1950), pp. 33-4.
40