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Boots on the march |
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Army to the rescue
A household cavalry boot made in 1903
© David Saint |
By the beginning of the 19th Century, boot and shoe making had spread to the towns and villages around Northampton, in many cases replacing the earlier main rural industry of lace making. Historically, the county has specialised only in men’s footwear.
Wellingborough, Kettering, Rushden and Desborough soon grew in importance in shoe making. The town of Raunds, however, concentrated on army boots. French soldiers in the Napoleonic campaigns, Cromwellians in the Civil War and the British in the American War of Independence all wore boots from Raunds.
During the Boar War, at the beginning of the 20th Century, limited mechanisation was already established and with it came industrial unrest and strikes.
Enter 41-year-old George Henry Roberts, who was to play a strange and interesting part in the controversy surrounding mechanisation and conditions of work in the boot industry. George lived in the small village of Ringstead, and cycled the 2 1/2 miles to Raunds, where he worked for Lawrence and Company. At Lawrence’s, like the other factories in Raunds, they made army and navy boots for government contracts.
Roberts’ family had lived in Ringstead for generations, certainly since 1789, when a William Roberts brought cattle from Wales and farmed in the village. William was George’s great grandfather, he was also, great, great, great grandfather to Margaret Hilda Roberts, now Baroness Thatcher.
Words: David Saint
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