Lives of Illustrious Shoemakers

by W. E. Winks

While sweet meditation and cheerful content

Shall make me both healthy and wise.

‘How vainly through infinite trouble and strife

The many their labors employ;

When all that is truly delightful in life

Is what all, if they will, may enjoy.’”

Sound sense and true philosophy this; and sorely did the young shoemaker and his much-enduring wife feel the need of such philosophy to hearten and console them when four and sixpence a week was all they had to spend on eating and drinking, and when, as he states, “strong beer we had none, nor any other liquor (the pure element excepted); and instead of tea, or rather coffee, we toasted a piece of bread, at other times we fried some wheat, which, when boiled in water, made a tolerable substitute for coffee; and as to animal food, we made use of but little, and that little we boiled and made broth of.” That the cheerful sentiments with which they set out in life did not fail them under the stress of such hardships as these is sufficiently shown by the statement with which he closes the chapter which deals with this part of his history: “During the whole of this time we never once wished for anything that we had not got, but were quite contented, and with a good grace in reality made a virtue of necessity.”

After three years Lackington resolved to go to London in the hope of meeting with better work and pay. It was indeed dire necessity that drove him to take this step. Incessant suffering and semi-starvation seemed inevitable if he remained in Bristol. His wife had been extremely ill almost from the beginning of their residence in the city, probably owing to the change from country air and active employment to the close atmosphere and sedentary occupation to which she was now accustomed. Her continued illness and his own hopeless state of poverty drove him to make the venture. Accordingly, having given her all the money he could spare, he set off for the metropolis, and arrived there in August, 1774, with half a crown in his pocket.

Once in London, the tide of his fortune turned. He soon found plenty of work and got good wages. In a month his wife was sent for, and the two worked so industriously and lived so economically, that before long Nancy changed her cloth cloak for one of silk, and her worthy husband indulged in the luxury of a greatcoat, the first he had ever worn. When he had been in London about four months he received tidings of the death of his grandfather, who had left ten pounds apiece to each of his grandchildren. He was so ignorant of money matters that he had no notion of obtaining the money except by going down to Somersetshire to fetch it, and the sum was accounted so prodigious, that he at once set off to claim his property; “so that,” he says, “it cost me about half the money in going down for it and in returning to town again.“ ”With the remainder of the money,“ he adds, ”we purchased household goods; but as we then had not sufficient to furnish a room, we worked hard and lived hard, so that in a short time we had a room furnished with our own goods; and I believe that Alexander the Great never reflected on his immense acquisitions with half the heart-felt enjoyment which we experienced on this capital attainment.” Now and then he visited the old bookshops and added a few books to his small library. One Christmas Eve he went out with half a crown in his pocket to purchase the Christmas dinner. Passing by an old bookshop, he could not resist the inducement to turn in and look over the stock. He intended to spend only a few pence on some book; but a copy of Young’s “Night Thoughts,” which he very much coveted, was so tempting a prize, that, without hesitation, he laid down his half-crown for the purchase of it. On returning home, he had no slight difficulty to persuade his wife of “the superiority of intellectual pleasures over sensual gratifications.“ ”I think,” said he to his patient spouse, “that I have acted wisely; for had I bought a dinner, we should have eaten it to-morrow, and the pleasure would have been soon over; but should we live fifty years longer, we shall have the ‘Night Thoughts’ to feast upon.”

In June, 1775, one of his Wesleyan friends looked in on Lackington and his wife as they sat at work making boots and shoes, and told them of a “shop and parlor” which were then to let in Featherstone Street, where it was suggested Lackington might obtain work as a master-shoemaker. He at once fell in with the proposal, and added that “he would sell books also.” He does not seem to have formed any intention of bookselling previous to this interview, but the prospect of having a shop of his own led him to think how easy and pleasant it would be to combine the two kinds of business. He says in his own naïve manner: “When he proposed my taking the shop, it instantly occurred to my mind that for several months past I had observed a great increase in a certain old bookshop, and that I was persuaded I knew as much of old books as the person who kept it. I further observed that I loved books, and that if I could but be a bookseller, I should then have plenty of books to read, which was the greatest motive I could conceive to induce me to make the attempt.” His friend engaged to procure the shop, and Lackington bought “a bag full of old books, chiefly divinity, for a guinea,” which, together with his own little library and some scraps of old leather, were worth five pounds. With this stock he “opened shop on Midsummer Day, 1775, in Featherstone Street, in the parish of St. Luke.”