Differing Responses to an Industrialising Economy - eTheses ...

An official leather-sealer was appointed to oversee the lively trade in leather, skins and
hides at Alcester market, which attracted many outside dealers. 124
Although Tables 4.2 and 4.4 do not paint exactly the same picture, they do show
that shoemakers were present in the town throughout the study period with an increase
during Period D, corroborated by baptisms and the 1841 census. 125
For other
leatherworkers it is a story of two halves with the leather trade prominent in the town’s
economy before 1750 and declining thereafter. 126
Tanners needed capital both to set up business and to tide them over months
without income as the tanning process was notoriously long-drawn out and needed a
sizeable property for the tan-pits and storage space. Consequently, tanners were amongst
the wealthier residents and were often also yeomen-farmers. 127
Tracing tanning-trade
workers apart from the business-owners themselves is difficult, the employees probably
being described as ‘labourers’. 128
Tanners usually concentrated on the production of
heavier leather from cattle-hides, produced locally or imported from Ireland. Their
markets were mainly local rather than national. 129
Alcester’s gentlemen tanners often held property in both town and countryside.
Perhaps some tanning operations were carried out in the countryside, where more space
was available, while finishing, marketing and the purchase of hides were based in
124 Saville, ‘The story of Alcester market’, pp. 2, 7.
125 UBD 1792 lists six shoemakers, one of whom doubled as a broker. In 1841 7.6% of adult males were
shoemakers.
126 Table 4.4 suggests that the decline started in the second quarter of the eighteenth century. Table 4.8
(1841census) shows only 1.9% of adult males in leather trades apart from shoemakers.
127 WoRO probate of Simon Bellers, Alcester, tanner, 1670, £221-13-0 and of Thomas Savage, Alcester,
tanner, £453-19-4. They deal with all types of hides, including boarskins and calfskins and also horns and
tails. Savage has a lease of bark, (used in the tanning process), in nearby Arrow Wood.
128 This also artificially inflates the perceived wealth of those in the tanning trade.
129 Clarkson, ‘The leather crafts in Tudor and Stuart England’, p. 29.
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