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The Effect of the American Export Invasion on the British Boot and Shoe Industry 1885–1914

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 February 2011

R. A. Church
R. A. Church
Affiliation:
University of Birmingham
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Extract

Recent articles have drawn attention to the general significance of the American export “invasion” in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Novack and Simon have concentrated on the origins of the invasion and on the attitudes of American businessmen, and to a lesser extent of others, to it. Elsewhere, Saul has considered the impact of intensified American competition upon British industry, underlining the need to reexamine the process of industrial transformation particularly during the two decades pre-ceding World War I. In the latter connection, the fundamental changes that occurred in the British boot and shoe industry, both in terms of rapidity and extent, make a case study of its history during this period especially rewarding, culminating, as it did, in a “Victory for British Boots”—the title of an article in The Economist in 1913. While the fact of successful response on the part of the industry is well known, the circumstances under which the trans-formation took place and the various elements which together produced the effective industrial counterattack have received less attention. In this article an attempt is made to remedy these deficiencies, to explain why the industry responded so successfully, and in particular to examine the role of American shoe machinery makers in this process, for in terms of control they virtually monopolized the supply of boot and shoe machinery in Britain toward the end of our period.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 28 , Issue 2 , June 1968 , pp. 223 - 254
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 1968

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References

1 See Novack, David E. and Simon, Matthew, “Commercial Responses to the American Export Invasion, 1871–1914,” Explorations in Entrepreneurial History, 2d. ser., Vol. III, No. 2 (Winter 1966)Google Scholar, and Saul, S. B., “The American Impact on British Industry, 1895–1914,” Business History, Vol. I, No. 1 (Dec. 1960)Google Scholar.

3 The Economist, May 13, 1913.

3 For a contemporary commentary see Porter, J. D. and Hirst, F. W., The Progress of the Nation (London: Methuen, 1912), ch. xixGoogle Scholar. Fox, Alan makes several scattered references to these matters in A History of the National Union of Boot and Shoe Operatives 1874–1957 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1958). See especially pp. 88–93, and 260–64Google Scholar.

4 U.S. Department of Commerce and Labor, Special Agent Series, No. 49, 1912. Shoe and Leather Trade in the United Kingdom by Arthur B. Butman (hereafter, Butman) pp. 58, 59. For a detailed analysis of the progress of foreign competition in the boot and shoe trade to 1894 see Report on Trade of the British Empire and Foreign Competition, P.P., 1897, Cd. 8449. I am grateful to Mr. Robert Irving, who assembled much of the quantitative data for this article.

5 Clapham, J. H., An Economic History of Modern Britain, Vol. I, “The Early Railway Age” (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1930), p. 181Google Scholar. The degree of standardization possible in the manufacture of boots and shoes is, of course, limited by the characteristics of leather. Silverman, H. A., Studies in Industrial Organization (London: Methuen, 1946), p. 199Google Scholar.

6 For an exhaustive study of industrial location see Mountfield, P. R., “The Location of Footwear Manufacture in England and Wales” (Ph.D. Thesis, University of Nottingham, 1962)Google Scholar.

7 See P. R. Mountfield, “The Footwear Industry of the East Midlands (III)—North-amptonshire 1700 to 1911,” The East Midland Geographer, Vol. Ill, Part VIII, No. 24; and “The Footwear of the East Midlands (IV) Leicestershire to 1911,” The East Midland Geographer, Vol. 4, Part I, No. 25.

8 ibid., p. 13.

9 These remarks are based upon the manuscript census returns and a variety of local trade directories. See also the evidence presented by boot and shoe manufacturers before the Children's Employment Commission in 1862, quoted in the second and third reports. [Cd. 3414 and 3414-i] H.C. (1864), v.

10 Clapham, J. H., An Economic History of Modern Britain, Vol. II, “Free Trade and Steel," pp. 95, 119Google Scholar.

11 For a recent lucid account of the technical development of boot and shoe production in Britain see Fox, , History, pp. 13–16, 260–62Google Scholar.

12 The Victoria County History of Northamptonshire, Vol. II (London: Archibald Constable, 1906), p. 236Google Scholar. The Victoria County History of Leicestershire, Vol. IV (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1958), pp. 315–17Google Scholar.

13 V.C.H., Leicestershire, p. 316. F. Bostock, shoe manufacturer of Northampton, referred to a particular shortage in the supply of machinists. 2d Report of the Children's Employment Commission [Cd. 3414], p. 168. Hogg quotes the reports of the Factory Inspector for 1863 in which he commented on a general shortage of shoe operatives in Leicester, p. 316.

14 For accounts of the strikes at Northampton and Stafford between 1857 and 1859, see “Trades Societies and Strikes,” Transactions of the National Association for the Promotion of Social Science, 1860.

15 Riveted footwear was reckoned to be one-fifth lower in price than machine-sewn footwear in the early period. V.C.H., Leicestershire, pp. 314, 319. The Boot and Shoe Trades Journal, July 1, 1904 (Historical article). Fox, History, pp. 14–15.

16 V.C.H., Leicestershire, p. 318. For the development of the Leicester industry, see also Head, P., “Industrial Organization in Leicester 1844–1914” (Ph.D. Thesis, University of Leicester, 1960)Google Scholar.

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19 See the Monthly Report of the National Union of Boot and Shoe Operatives quoted by Fox, , History, p. 88Google Scholar.

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21 John Day was the son of a Stafford shoe manufacturer, and was formerly engaged in the trade at Leicester before he joined the editorial staff of the Boot and Shoe Trades Journal, in which capacity he remained until 1886. The Shoe and Leather Record, Jan. 14, 1930.

22 Throughout this article “Northamptonshire” and “Leicestershire” refer to the entire counties including the county towns. Many of the firms in the county towns employed labor in the villages, and the lines of product specialization between the two counties appears to have been sharper than the divisions between the county towns and their country environs. Within Northamptonshire, for example, Kettering produced mainly medium- and lower-quality men's shoes, Welhngborough and Rushden made cheaper men's footwear, and at Rushden and Raunds boots for the armed services figured prominently. The 1891 Census figures, counting males and females aged 10 and over, were as follows:

23 See Butman, p. 9.

24 “Much of the labour-saving machinery so common in Leicester seems to be little used here” (in Northampton). The Boot and Shoe Trades Journal, Oct. 23, 1886.

25 Ibid.

26 See Hazard, B. E., The Organization of the Boot and Shoe Industry in Massachusetts before 1875 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1921), p. 109Google Scholar.

27 Fox, , History, p. 93Google Scholar;The Boot and Shoe Trades Journal, March 17, 1886Google Scholar.

28 The Shoe and Leather Record, November 17, 1888Google Scholar;Fox, Alan, History, p. 94Google Scholar.

29 Reported in The Boot and Shoe Trades Journal, October 13, 1888Google Scholar.

30 The Shoe and Leather Record, September 21, 1895, p. 305Google Scholar. An editorial in the Boot and Shoe Trades Journal ran as follows: “We think we can assert with all force and truthfulness that 99 machines in 100 are today bought by manufacturers for experimental rather than practical purposes and the application of them to their business is regarded as a luxury rather than a necessity.” Specific examples included the employ-ment of lasting machinery only for lowest-quality goods, and the widespread practice of employing unskilled labor and inferior materials with welting machinery. The Boot and Shoe Trades Journal, June 22, 1889, Mar. 15, 1890Google Scholar.

31 See the firms listed in Home and Export Guide to the Manufacture of Boots and Shoes (Liverpool, 1874)Google Scholar.

32 In 1886 Walker, Kempson & Stevens, formerly hosiery manufacturers, employed 1000 people and produced 30,000 pairs weekly. This firm was said to be one of the four Leicester firms making more than 4000 pairs weekly in 1890. The Boot and Shoe Trades Journal, March 24, 1905Google Scholar; Royce and Gascoine employed 600 in 1890 when the weekly output was 7000 to 8000 pairs, Annual Report of the Inspector of Factories and Workshops, Midland Division, 1890; Manfields possesed its own retail stores and was also among the largest exporters of boots and shoes in 1886, The Boot and Shoe Trades Journal, October 9, 1886Google Scholar,Fortunes Made in Business (1905), pp. 345–52Google Scholar.The Shoe and Leather Record, March 7, 1924Google Scholar. In 1889 Cave was employing over 700 people and producing 10,000 pairs weekly, The Boot and Shoe Trades Journal, September 29, 1905Google Scholar; Howlett & White were employing over 700 people and producing 10,000 pairs weekly, The Boot and Shoe Trades Journal, September 29, 1905Google Scholar; Howlett & White were employing 1200 people in 1897; weekly output was 20,000.3 3 Clapham, , Economic History, II, 94–95Google Scholar.

34 See Rimmington, G. T., “The Historical Geography of the Engineering Industry in Leicester” (M.A. Thesis, University of Leicester, 1958)Google Scholar.

35 Some of the information relating to the shoe machinery trade has been obtained from the library of the British United Shoe Machinery Company Limited of Leicester.

36 V.C.H., Northamptonshire, II, 328Google Scholar. The first Goodyear welt sewers were said to have been 54 times as fast as stitching by awl and thread. V.C.H., Leicestershire, IV, 319Google Scholar.

37 The Boot and Shoe Trades Journal, Aug. 20, 1892Google Scholar.

38 Greenwood & Batley had been the owners of, and suppliers to, the Keats Lockstitch Machine taken over in the formation of the English & American Machinery Company in 1882. Ibid.

39 The Boot and Shoe Trades Journal, September 27, 1890Google Scholar,The Shoe and Leather Record, Jan. 28, 1898, Mar. 29, 1929Google Scholar.

40 In fact only 50 of these machines had been sold in Britain down to 1896.

41 The Shoe and Leather Record, Aug. 23, 1901Google Scholar; Dec. 21, 1900. See also Fox, , History, p. 132Google Scholar.

42 The Shoe and Leather Record, Dec. 23, 1898Google Scholar. The Boot and Shoe Trades Journal, Dec. 25, 1897Google Scholar.

43 The Shoe and Leather Record, October 26, 1895Google Scholar.

44 See Novak and Simon, “Commercial Responses.”

45 See U.S. Consular Report, No. 59, 1885.

46 The Boot and Shoe Trades Journal, July 11, 1891.

47 The Boot and Shoe Trades Journal, Dec. 1893.

48 Day, John in Cox, Harold, ed., British Industries under Free Trade (London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1903), pp. 240–42Google Scholar.

49 Ibid.

50 See Porter, and Hirst, , Progress, p. 378Google Scholar;U.S. Consular Report, 1895, XLVIII, No. 176Google Scholar;The Shoe and Leather Record, 1896, Vol. I, p. 506Google Scholar.

51 The Boot and Shoe Trades Journal, Apr. 2, 1892Google Scholar; see also the remarks cited by Fox, , History, p. 206Google Scholar.

52 Fox, , History, p. 264Google Scholar.

53 U.S. Consular Reports, Vol. XLVIII, No. 176, 1895Google Scholar.

54 U.S. Statistical Abstracts, Annual Trade Statements.

55 The Boot and Shoe Trades Journal, July 17, 1903Google Scholar. Giving evidence before the Tariff Commission in 1904 Henry J. Bostock extended support for higher tariffs. This followed a stay in the United States whence he returned in 1902. “Lotus History" unpublished typescript kindly loaned by Lotus Ltd. of Stafford. See also The Shoe ana Leather Record, Jan. 1, 1904Google Scholar. The 25 percent duty was reduced to 10 percent in 1909 and abolished completely in 1913. Taussig, F. W., Tariff History of the United States (8th ed.; New York: Putnam, 1966), pp. 386–444Google Scholar.

56 Fox, , History, pp. 130, 131, 215Google Scholar.

57 The Shoe and Leather Record, March 15, 1895Google Scholar. Day's essay, “The Boot and Shoe Trade” in Cox, Harold, ed., British Industries Under Free Trade (London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1903)Google Scholar, was, of course, directed against tariff reformers.

58 See Hoffman, W. B., “The Late Boot War,” Economic Journal (June 1895)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

59 Ibid. For a detailed analysis see Fox, , History, Sec. IVGoogle Scholar.

60 The Shoe and Leather Record, October 26, 1895Google Scholar. The reporter maintained that the price of a complete set of finishing machinery had fallen by half in only a few years.

61 The Boot and Shoe Trades Journal, Jan. 1897Google Scholar;The Shoe and Leather Record, Jan. 4, 1896Google Scholar.

62 Ibid.

63 See Jones, Eliot, The Trust Problem in the United States (New York: Macmillan, 1933), pp. 160–70Google Scholar.

64 The Shoe and Leather Record, Feb. 17, 1899Google Scholar; June 23, 1899; Oct. 13, 1899. See also Silverman, H. A., Studies in Industrial Organization (1946), p. 218Google Scholar. The capital was increased to £320,000 in 1907, to £.400,000 in 1909, and to £800,000 in 1914. The Stock Exchange Official Yearbook (Skinner, 1936), p. 983Google Scholar.

65 The Shoe and Leather Record, May 14, 1897; Feb. 24, 1933Google Scholar.

66 Information on the histories of shoe machinery makers after 1899 is difficult to find. These remarks are based largely on advertisements in trade journals.

67 The Boot and Shoe Trades Journal, Aug. 4, 1905Google Scholar; Jan. 3, 1913.

68 Rimmington, “Historical Geography.” In fact these firms advertised themselves separately as “Non Royalty” or “Free” manufacturers, and A. H. Johnson, a London agent for a French shoe machinery firm, guaranteed to defend any action brought in respect of any of their machines. The Shoe and Leather Record, Sept. 10, 1910.

69 See the Minutes of the British Footwear Manufacturers' Federation for 1901–1903, for the loan of which I am grateful to Mr. P. Glennie-Smith. There are reports, too, in the Shoe and Leather Record, November 7, 1902Google Scholar; July 31, 1903.

70 The Shoe and Leather Record, July 31, 1903Google Scholar.

71 The Shoe and Leather Record, October 13, 1899Google Scholar; Mar. 23, 1900. See also Hoover, E. M. Jr, Location Theory and the Shoe and Leather Industry (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1937), pp. 200–1CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

72 The Shoe and Leather Record, Feb. 17, 1899Google Scholar.

73 The Shoe and Leather Record, October 13, 1899Google Scholar.

74 Warner, L. E., “Devolution in Industry” (M. Com. dissertation, Birmingham, 1925), ch. xivGoogle Scholar.

75 Carver, , quoted in The Shoe and Leather Record, June 13, 1902Google Scholar.

78 These and other references to the B.U.S.M.C.'s leasing system are based partly on information obtained from the Company. Those provisions relating to the supply of shoe machinery have long since been superseded.

77 The Shoe and Leather Record, November 7, 1902Google Scholar.

78 The Shoe and Leather Record, July 31, 1903Google Scholar.

79 Report of the Departmental Committee of the Board of Trade appointed to consider the position of the Engineering Trades after the War. 1916, Cd. 9073, xii, 369, pp. 400–1Google Scholar.

80 In fact, this Act, passed in Massachusetts in 1907, was not enforced, mainly because the United Shoe Machinery Company introduced a clause in the leases which gave manufacturers freedom to terminate all leases on thirty days’ notice in the event of any dispute. The prospect of a stoppage of work within thirty days deterred manufacturers from instituting proceedings, and thus the Act's protection was nullified. Subsequent litigation in which the United Company faced the Federal Government ended in 1918 with a victory for the company in the Supreme Court. See Warner, “Devolution in Industry,” ch. xiv.

81 The British United Shoe Machinery Company, Leicester (privately printed, 1919), p. 6.Google Scholar

82 Ibid.

83 The Ramsbottom case related to an Empire Stitching Machine valued at less than £.40. The compensation under the arbitration by the Board of Trade was £.137, to which was added the costs of arbitration totaling £. 430 altogether. Though the royalties under the two forms of leases offered were the same, other payments differed:

See Warner, “Devolution in Industry”.

84 Butman, p. 8.

85 Ibid.

86 Report of the Departmental Committee appointed by the Board of Trade to consider the position of the Engineering Trades after the War, 1916, Cd. 9073, xiii, 369, pp. 400–1Google Scholar. Minutes of evidence before the Committee on Industry and Trade 1924-1927, Vol. I, pp. 272–73. ev. of Bostock, H. J.Google Scholar.

87 See Fox, , History, p. 262Google Scholar.

88 Hillman, H. C., “Size of Firms in the Boot and Shoe Industry,” Economic Journal, XLIX (June 1939), 282Google Scholar. See also The British United Shoe Machinery Company Ltd. (Leicester: privately printed, 1919), pp. 5–7Google Scholar.

89 Information supplied by B.U.S.M.C.

90 In fact, neither of these firms then used B.U.S.M.C. machinery. Both firms specialized in women's and children's light footwear and slippers.

91 The output figures are those cited by Butman, who classified firms by output and type of footwear produced. Butman, Appendix, pp. 62–80.

92 Quoted in the Daily Mail, Apr. 30, 1907, where he referred to the opposition of shoe manufacturers and employees to new machinery. “Thus we had to go to America for our improved machinery and we had to fight a great mass of prejudice in placing improved plant on the market.”

93 In 1899 B.U.S.M.C. employed 200 persons, by 1907 about 600, and by 1919 2000 were employed in the production as well as maintenance of boot and shoe machinery. The B.U.S.M.C: Its Works and Products (1929), p. 5Google Scholar. Of 400 different kinds of machines made by the company in 1918, 250 were for sale outright. The British United Shoe Machinery Company Ltd. (Leicester, 1919), p. 5Google Scholar.

94 Butman, p. 9.

95 The Boot and Shoe Trades Journal, October 23, 1886Google Scholar.

96 The Boot and Shoe Trades Journal, Dec. 12, 1902Google Scholar;The Shoe and Leather Record, Aug. 1, 1902Google Scholar, in which a critical article appearing in The Daily Mail is attacked for misrepresenting the facts concerning the American invasion; and in which it is pointed out that its chief impact was in men's footwear and in qualities of women's footwear which were not the major lines of Leicester manufacturers. The Northampton Independent, July 27, 1907Google Scholar, “Northampton makes the bulk of the welted goods.” See also Wort, A., quoted by Mountfield, P. R. “The Footwear Industry of the East Midlands,” The East Midland Geographer, Vol. 4, Part I, No. 25, p. 190Google Scholar.

97 These figures refer to boots, shoes, and slippers in pairs.

98 Butman, pp. 8, 9. In terms of quantity, the town of Leicester was the principal shoe manufacturing center in the United Kingdom, p. 7.

99 Census of England and Wales, 1911, Vol. X, [Cd. 7018]Google Scholar.

100 See Fox, History, letters of support from a number of leading manufacturers reproduced in The British United Shoe Machinery Company Ltd. (Leicester: privately printed, 1919), pp. 8–15Google Scholar.

101 U.S. Consul Report, 1895, Vol. XLVIII, No. 176Google Scholar;The Boot and Shoe Trades Journal, Dec. 3, 1893Google Scholar.

102 The Shoe and Leather Record, Aug. 23, 1901Google Scholar; Dec. 21, 1900.

103 U.S. Consular Report, No. 303, 1905, 58th Cong., 3d Sess., Doc. 339.

104 Formerly a partner in the long-established family firm of John Marlow & Sons Ltd., A. E. Marlow set up his own business in 1899 at the age of 29 making 1500 pairs a week. A large extension in 1901 increased the production capacity to 7500 and by 1911 was making 3000 pairs of machine-sewn and 4000 pairs of welted shoes. Spurning modesty, he claimed that he and people like him had repelled the American invasion. The Boot and Shoe Trades Journal, Jan. 30, 1903.

105 Butman, pp. 9–10. Manfields, which in 1911 manufactured 6000 pairs welted, 3000 pairs machine-sewn, and 1500 turns and hand-sewn, likewise played a leading role in responding to American competition. A U.S. Consular report in 1900 referred to this company's American machinery, methods, and factory system, and to its distribution policy of opening retail outlets in Europe, in addition to its forty shops in the United Kingdom. U.S. Consular Report, LXIV, No. 240, p. 12. “An English firm manufacturing by American methods, now comes to reap what our timid exporters have sown.” These are the words of F. Mason, Consul General in Berlin.

106 The Boot and Shoe Trades Journal, Aug. 16, 1901Google Scholar. On the subject of factory management he noted that little incentive was provided for managers at this level to take initiative.

107 The Shoe and Leather Record, 1896, Vol. I, pp. 507–8Google Scholar. This report, criticized for its superficiality by John Day, found little improvement in the comparative efficiency of the American and British industries since Day's report in 1891. However, in Swaysland's Report on American Methods of Boot and Shoe Manufacture, published in 1906, he remarked upon the degree to which British manufacturers had adoptedAmerican techniques and methods, p. 5.

108 See Jeffreys, J. B., Retail Trading in Great Britain 1850–1950 (1954)Google Scholar.

109 The Shoe and Leather Record, October 23, 1903; Aug. 19, 1910Google Scholar.

110 The Shoe and Leather Record, 1912, Vol. 3, p. 4Google Scholar; Sept. 2, 1910.

111 Butman, pp. 5, 60. See also U.S. Consular Report, 1900, LXIV, No. 240, p. 13.Google Scholar