Extract from 'Bedfordshire’s Yesteryears'. Article by Arthur Thew

Leather was prepared for re-sale in Harrold, rather than for processing.  I took some local boys with me and set up the manufacture of leather for George Fensome Leathers Ltd., in Higham Ferrers, a company which had previously bought in from the firm I was with.  I worked my way up and eventually became a company director.  This was in the 1950s.

Leather became important locally from about 1850 when Thomas Rate came up from Worcester and started tanning leather in the village.  It was close to the shoe producing area and the water was good and plentiful and so the trade flourished in this area.  Eighty per cent or so of people in other villages were agricultural workers but eighty per cent of the population of Harrold were in leather, with scarcely any unemployment.  Of the four factories, only the smallest one survives.

After the second world war the Indian government decided rather than export the leather in that condition, they would process it themselves.  We never thought it would happen but it has, and we are seeing a decline in the leather industry.  Bermondsey used to be centre of the leather trade in London.  Rushden is still a shoe-manufacturing town, but firms there buy closed uppers now, where the upper part of the shoe has been made in India and these are attached to the sole, instead of making the complete process. 

I still do the buying and selecting for my firm.  I have never been to India, as the firm buy from agents, with a contract stipulating standards.  My Managing director has been there but not me.  I would like to have gone when I was younger.  In 1933 I joined the Open University to study for a degree.

ARTHUR THEW