Based on childhood recollections
of early 1900s London.
Detail from an early 1900s photo showing how children wore boots rather than shoes. Shoes were for Sundays and special occasions. In very poor families children often went barefoot, and there would be collections of cast-off shoes for them.
My father, like most working class fathers at the time, saved money by repairing our family's shoes - or rather, boots, as that was what we all wore, apart from on Sundays and special occasions. It was cheaper for him to do it rather than to use a local 'cobbler' [shoe mender].
My father did the repairs in his shed outside in the back garden of our Edwardian terraced house.
He always seemed ready to repair my boots once he knew that they needed it, but he usually did not know. I well remember him asking to look at my feet, and lo and behold! There was a hole in the sole of my foot. There was a lot of "tut-tutting" and "Didn't you know there was a nail sticking up?". Of course I did, but one did not readily complain in my childhood.
My father mended our shoes with leather.
First he soaked the leather in water to softened it and make it more pliable.
Then he took off the worn leather, put on the new and cut it neatly to shape.
Tools for mending boots and shoes in the early 1900s. To the back left is the hobbing foot and at the front are what appear to be shoe lasts of various sizes..For the difference between a last and a hobbing foot see the page on cobblers.
My father had his own hobbing foot. This was a length of wood about 6 inches in diameter and about three feet high with a hole in the top to hold a piece of metal in the shape of foot.
A form of hobbing foot, suitable for using with a range of shoe sizes.
There were three sizes: men's, women's, and children's.
When he had a boot or shoe to repair, he chose the best size of last, put it onto the hobbing foot and then put the boot or shoe on top of that. Finally he placed the whole contraption between his legs, and sat down using his knees to support it. He would have looked rather like the main in the drawing.
A man in the early 1900s mending a boot.
Adapted from a sketch provided by Rosemary Hampton from
her book: A Jersey Family: from Vikings to Victorians, (2009),
published by Channel Islands Family History Society.
SEE INSIDE THE BOOK.
His other tools and implements were a bradawl for making holes, a hammer and nails and a very sharp knife for cutting the leather to shape. There was also some black stuff that he put round the outside of the sole, which he finished off with a small, hot tool. I think this was waterproofing but I'm not sure. He polished the boots and shoes with a hard beeswax polish, sold for the purpose.
If he used a bradawl, he would have been stitching on soles, using pitch tar for sealing.
For nailing on soles, he would have had to have the special pincers used by cobblers. These had sharp jaws for getting a grip on headless nails. At the end of one handle was a nail puller and at the end of the other a small ball for hitting with a hammer to punch the nail heads below the level of the leather to avoid getting worn through - see my sketch. Not shown is the loop of string or leather that went over the arch of the boot and under one of his feet to hold it in place, so freeing both his hands. One hand positioned the nails which were stored in the his mouth and the other used the hammer.
Desmond Dyer
MEN'S ACTVITIES IN THE EARLY 1900S
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general activities
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mending boots and shoes
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storing root vegetables
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