The Book of the Feet: A History of Boots and Shoes

by Joseph Sparkes Hall

Nothing can be more to the point than these strictures on the English leather and English blocking, as compared with the French. For the last seven years, I have in every order where calfskin fronts have been required, used Bordeaux leather; it was not only soft, elastic, and durable, but in addition to the pleasure derived from making up a good article, it was as cheap as the English in the end, as we never had to put in a new front or repair cracks and breakages, a constant source of trouble and expense, incidental to the English fronts. It was no uncommon case, a few years since, after having bought the best article the trade could produce in calf-leather, after paying an extravagantly high price, and making up the article in the best possible manner, to find, after six or eight times wearing, a decided crack across the bend of the foot. I have tried every expedient on those occasions I could think of to prevent it, and acted on numerous suggestions from my foreman and workmen, and all to no purpose: not unfrequently the “most unkindest cut of all,” has been from the currier, who has laid the blame by turn on the blocker, clicker, bootman; even the feather[1] has had to bear its share of the blame.

This inferiority of calfskin has not only been the fault and disgrace of the British tanner and currier, but his loss to an enormous amount; he has been slow to admit it, but it is “a great fact;” a brighter day, however, now opens upon him.

Dr. Turnbull, after patient and repeated experiments on the science of tanning, has discovered the true cause of all this hardness and breaking. To him the tanners and the public owe a debt of gratitude, which they will both best discharge by patronising his invention. I have had an opportunity of personally inspecting his process at Bermondsey, from beginning to end, and I am enabled, through his kindness, to convey the following information respecting his improved process of tanning:—

“The skins of the animals are composed of two chief parts: the corium or cutis, and the cuticle or epidermis. The former, which is the true skin, is a tissue of delicate fibres, crossing each other in all directions, more thickly interwoven toward the surface, than in the deeper parts of the skin. It is pervaded by a great number of conical channels, the small extremities of which terminate at the external surface of the skin. These channels, which are placed obliquely, contain nerves, secretory vessels, and cellular membranes.

“The cuticle or exterior covering is an insensible horny membrane, composed of several layers of cells, devoid of blood-vessels.

“The process of tanning consists in the combination of the gelatinous substance of which the skin is principally composed, and the tonic acid, or tannin. The gelatinous substance in skins, and the tannic acid, having a strong chymical affinity for each other, the hide or skin is converted into leather whenever tannin is brought into contact with the gelatinous tissue or fibre.

“The slowness of the process in tanning leather, and the imperfect manner in which it has hitherto been accomplished, arise from the difficulty in bringing the tannin or tannic acid into contact with the gelatinous tissue, or fibre of the skins; and although, of late years, considerable modifications of the old method of tanning have been introduced, chiefly consisting in the employment of new materials, and the application of hydrostatic pressure, yet the result, upon the whole, has been merely to effect a saving of the time consumed in tanning, and a consequent reduction of the price, without any improvement in the quality of the leather, but rather the reverse. This has given rise to a strong prejudice in the minds of persons connected with the leather trade, against leather tanned by any quick process. The difficulty of bringing the tannin, or tannic acid, immediately and effectually into contact with the gelatinous fibre of the skin, arises from several causes, which it may be useful to enumerate.

“In preparing the skins and hides for the tanpit, they are steeped for a considerable time in a solution of lime, to remove the hair and epidermis. In this process, the skin imbibes a considerable quantity of lime, which has the effect of either removing from the hide or skin, a portion of the gelatinous substance, in the form of soluble gelatine, or, of altering the gelatinous fibre, so as to render it incapable of speedily and effectually combining with the tannin or tannic acid, and the pores of the skin are so impregnated with lime, as to prevent the tanning principle from operating freely, or reaching the heart of the skins.

“The great object to be obtained, therefore, is to find out some means of removing these obstructions and antagonistic principles, and of bringing about a speedy and effectual combination of the fibre of the hides or skins, and the tanning matter, and thus produce in a short space of time, leather superior in weight, quality, and durability, to any yet produced. The object of my improvements, is to remove these difficulties, and obstructions, either by extracting the lime with which hides and skins are impregnated in the process of removing the hair, or removing the same without the use of lime, by means not hitherto attempted.”

The old plan of using lime, by which, no doubt, the skin was injured to an extent we never before supposed, and the consequent process in the tanyard, of puring, as it is termed, by means of the dung of animals—a process the most filthy and disgusting, one would have thought, that could be imagined—gives way to Dr. Turnbull’s discovery of “sugar and sawdust.” This simple and delicate preparation, we are told, is more effectual; and “you may drink it,” say the workmen, “for it is fit for any table in the land.”