The Tanning Industry in Bampton
A not-so-small industry that we have forgotten
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Miriam James and Jo Lewington
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A Bampton Archive Publication
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The Tanning Industry in Bampton A not-so-small industry that we have forgotten by Miriam James and Jo Lewington
A Bampton Archive Publication
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A Bampton Archive Publication
Please visit www.bamptonarchive.org to view the extensive list of archive video and audio recordings, publications and exhibition catalogues. The website also features a large searchable archive of artefacts relating to Bampton going back thousands of years. January 2017 The author acknowledges the respective copyright owners for the images and photographs used. Cover image: INTERFOTO / Alamy Stock Photo BCA-42/A January 2017
The Tanning Industry in Bampton Based on a Bampton Community Archive exhibition held in the Vesey Room of the Bampton Library in January 2017
Introduction What are you wearing today? Something warm, probably, in January: brushed cotton, maybe? Felt, perhaps, or corduroy? A nice thick waterproof jacket against the cold and wet? Maybe a woollen scarf, to fill in the gaps between? Nowadays most of us are dressed in clothes made from a wide variety of materials: cotton, wool, nylon, mackintosh; generally it is just our extremities – hands, feet, heads – that we cover in leather to protect ourselves from the elements.
English cattle
Three hundred years ago there were only two choices of material, both home produced, that could be made into everyday clothes: wool and leather. Both these materials came from the sheep and the cattle that the hills of the Cotswolds were renowned for. Herds of cows and flocks of sheep grazed the great open fields outside the planted crops of wheat and barley, and they were valued almost as much for their skins as for their meat and their wool. Wool could be turned into cloth at home, and almost every household would have had a spinning wheel which transformed the raw wool into threads and skeins of wool, to be woven or knitted into garments. Rich people wore silk beneath the wool, and velvet to enhance it; but velvet and silk were expensive, and poor people only wore layers of wool, generally undyed, made into clothes in their own cottages. Most women would have worn flannel petticoats, men wore flannel shirts. 7
A somewhat idealized picture of a rural cottage
These woollen clothes were warm, but they gave very little protection from the wind and none from the rain that lashed down, then as now, to make the fields and meadows green and fertile. But there was another product from the animals that grazed on Bampton’s great open fields near Lew, towards Aston, and beside the River Thames after harvest and during the fallow year. Cows provided milk while they lived, and were killed for their meat; their skins then went straight from the butcher to be made into leather by the tanning process.
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Leather Leather was worn to keep out the wind and the rain, to fit on heads, bodies, hands, legs and feet; to turn into shoes and leggings, or bags for carrying goods, as tankards for beer, to make into bridles and saddles and traces for horses, to cover the coaches of the rich and to hang over the doorways of the poor, to cover books and to decorate furniture. The skins of sheep could also be used for clothing, especially for smaller and lighter garments; gloves, for instance, were made in many places, and worn by men and women alike.
A leather tankard
A man in a leather apron
The gloving-making industry flourished especially in places where they were worn by men going hunting, and Oxfordshire was renowned for its gloves, centering on the great hunting ground of Woodstock forest; fine hunting gloves were made by women working in cottages until the present century.
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In 1677 Robert Plot, writing the Natural History of Oxford-shire, commented on the importance of Bampton in the trade of Fellmongering, saying that there was “no Town in England having a Trade like it in that sort of Ware”. He tells us that the skins were “made into jackets, breeches, leather-linings, etc.” and that they were sold in Berkshire, Wiltshire and Dorsetshire, and that they were the “most peculiar” – that is, the most important – of Oxfordshire.
From Robert Plot: The Natural History of Oxford-shire
A leather mitten 10
Leather gloves
Tanning in Bampton Tanning leather could not be carried out at home. It was a long process, involving several stages, and carried out by trained tanners in special pits. Because of the difficulties of producing leather from skin, there were specialized places that were famed for their tanneries; and Bampton was one of these places.
A tanning yard There is other evidence of tanning in Bampton and Weald: the name “Tanner’s Lane” was used here, as in many other places where tanning was carried out; and the surname “Tanner” recurs among Bampton names over the centuries. 11
Why might the tanning industry have been so important to Bampton? To start with, there was the raw material, the skins of the sheep and the hides of cattle; when they had been killed, their skins were readily available as a by-product of the wool trade and of the meat that would have been eaten regularly by rich people, generally in the form that we know as mutton or beef.
“The Butcher Shop” by Annibale Carracci (c.1580) Also in Bampton there were materials existing nearby to be used in the tanning industry: water from the Shill Brook which ran along the edge of the village, and bark from the trees that surrounded ‘Bampton-in-the-Bush’; both of these were primary ingredients in the tanning process. 12
There were, of course, hides a-plenty in the Bampton area. The local land is good for animal husbandry and the Cotswold hills were the site of a successful wool trade. Butchers produced hides as a by-product of their trade; they either slaughtered the animals themselves or at a local slaughter house.
Removing bark from a felled oak tree (Bampton had its own slaughter house within living memory, in Moonraker Lane, which used to be called, aptly, ‘Slaughterhouse Lane’). In the seventeenth century the hides were then delivered to the tanners and the long, skilful, stinking process began. Hides had to be processed near the place of skinning as, if they had to travel, the new hides would deteriorate very quickly. 13
What is Tanning? The first job was simply washing off the blood, dung and dirt, which was usually done in the nearby stream. Next the fat, flesh and hair had to be removed so the hides were given their first soaking in shallow pits containing urine and lime. In fact, Bampton water, having limestone soluble in it, was very good for this stage of tanning. An alternative description of this stage of the process suggests that the hides were folded with the hair side innermost, so that putrefaction would rot the hair follicles and loosen the hair. None of these processes would be pleasant to live next to. The slightly rotted hides would then be scraped with a two-handled scraper, until the all hair, fat and flesh were removed. (A by-product of this process was cow hair which was used as a binder for the plaster, when plastering buildings. This ‘hairy’ plaster can be found in the lathe and plaster work of older dwellings in Bampton). Scraping was a skilled job; too vigorous and there would be a hole in the hide, too little scraping would spoil the quality of the leather.
Scraping a hide 14
Once scraped, the hides were again washed and soaked, this time in a mixture which could include bird droppings and dog dung. A third stage meant treating the hide with a solution made with barley or rye and stale beer and urine. All the ingredients were available locally. Urine was collected in pots at the sides of the roads, and in pewter vessels under the table of the rich. Probably, in an age of home brewing, stale beer could also be easily collected.
A hide scraper All these processes helped soften the leather and presumably the skill of the tanner was to regulate the process both according to the type of leather used, and the ultimate use of the tanned skins – thick and hard for shoe soles, soft for gloves, and in between for the countless other uses to which leather was destined. Bampton water was supposed to have been particularly good for making the softest leather needed for the glove makers. The next stage in the tanning process was to immerse the cleansed and shaved hide in the tanning solution, water in which a certain amount of oak bark had been left. These tanks had to be stirred, sometimes by standing in the pit, to make sure that the colour of the hides was evenly spread. Next the hides were “layered’’, that is put in yet another sort of tank, and layered with finely chopped oak bark. Leather could be left immersed in these tanks for up to a year and a half. It is the tannin of the oak that gives the process its name. This final tanning process made the leather virtually indestructible. (We use the term ‘tanks’, but they are really formed by stones, lined either with wood or clay or both). 15
The final process was rinsing and smoothing using a ‘settling pin’ (like a rolling pin) before being dried in a controlled way to avoid cracking or mouldering. The leather was then stretched and greased to make it supple.
Excavated tanning pits Once taken from the drying sheds, the leather could be sorted according to quality and thickness, and sold on to the skilled craftsmen - the shoe maker, the saddler, the glover, the harness makers and the maker of aprons, tunics, hats, gauntlets, boxes, water holders, garments and so on.
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Scabbard
18th Century leather overcoat
Leather jerkin
Blacksmith’s apron 17
The History of Tanning Using leather to make clothes has a long precedent. Adam and Eve were said to have made clothes from fig-leaves, but the Revised Version adds that “the Lord God made coats of skins, and clothed them” before sending them out of the Garden of Eden. The Greeks were using leather garments in the age of the Homeric heroes, in about 1200 B.C., and the use of leather spread throughout the Roman Empire.
“Adam and Eve” 18
At some date, whether by accident or by trial and error, man discovered methods of preserving and softening leather, treating animal skins with such things as smoke, grease and bark extracts. The method of tanning leather using the bark of trees was certainly used by the Hebrews. In primitive societies, the art was a closely guarded secret passed down from father to son. As civilisation developed in Europe, tanners and leather workers united in the trade guilds of the Middle Ages. The importance of the tanning industry meant that The Skinners’ Guild was one of the twelve great livery companies of the City of London – sixth or seventh in rank, alternating each year with the Merchant Taylors’ Guild, so that they were ‘at sixes and sevens’ – that controlled trade in the City. Tanners had the sole right to purchase the hides of cattle, which were a by-product of butchery, and the name ‘Tanner’ recurs in street names as well as in surnames in many places.
Coat of arms for the Skinners Guild
18th Century leather shoes
To start with, tanning in rural areas seems to have taken place outside the villages, in areas where the necessary water and tree bark used in tanning were readily available; but in 1148 the Assize of the Forest ordered that tanners must live in boroughs, instead of in the forest; and perhaps this is when the tanners of Bampton moved from the forested land of Weald, outside the town, to a site near the centre. (At this time the name ‘Weald’ referred to all the land west of Rosemary Lane). The establishment of butchers in the town centre may also have been a factor; skins could come straight from the butcher, cutting out the danger of putrefaction, and tanning became a by-product of butchery. By the middle ages the production of leather had become a necessity; it was used for shoes, saddles, or for harness; for sacks to carry liquid, scabbards to hold a sword, even as a simple form of protective 19
armour. In 1415 the soldiers of Henry V wore leather arm guards as they drew their great bows at the battle of Agincourt; although pikes could only be deflected by metal, so pikemen wore metal breastplates as well.
Soldiers with longbows
A Cromwellian soldier
Two hundred and fifty years later Cromwell’s army, pursuing the King on his journey from Bletchington towards the bridge at Radcot, stopped in Bampton and put up their leather shelters for the night, and perhaps took off their leather boots, though they probably kept on their leather jerkins and the leather caps that they wore under their steel helmets.
17th Century men’s leather shoes
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A horse-drawn carrriage Higher up the social scale the demand for leather was more discriminating; finely dressed leather could still be used as protection from bad weather, but it was supple and often tooled or patterned with decoration, and soft enough to be worn under armour. The growing need for saddles and bridles increased the demand for leather, as rich people travelled more freely; and the carriages of the seventeenth century were roofed in leather, supple enough to fold down if the weather was fine. King Charles II, going on a journey from Oxford to see his sister at Tunbridge, sent a note to his adviser that he intended “to take nothing but my night-bag”; Clarendon handed the note back with his comment, “Yet you will not go without 40 or 50 horses”; the note came back again: “I counte that part of my night-bag,” and we can picture him smiling as the notes went to and fro during the meeting of the Council. Kings did not travel light; and most of their luggage was made from leather, from the saddles and bridles of the horses to the vehicles for carrying equipment. King Charles II
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Records From Bampton Before the development of rubber, leather was essential for keeping out the wet. The original “Wellington Boots” were made of leather, and in the army Victorian officers still relied on leather overcoats to stay dry, until the development of mackintosh rubber in the mid-nineteenth century. Among poor people leather was still seen as essential for men working in the fields; so important that men and boys who could not afford it were given leather clothing by the Parish to protect them from the elements. The records of the meetings of Bampton Vestry in the early nineteenth century show the uses of leather as agricultural clothing; in several cases an arrangement was made with the Master of the Poor House in Weald to give leather clothes to poor boys who were going out to work, and sometimes gifts of leather clothing were made to men who needed good waterproof clothing in order to work on the land. Their shirts would probably have been made of linen, while the coats, waistcoats and breeches would have been leather; woollen stockings were knitted, and there is a frequent note of money being paid for knitted stockings for poor people. The first item of the Vestry notes of January 5 1755 state that it was “Agreed by the Vestry to allow Robt Cook towards his going into Service a Foul Weather Coat a Wastcoat a Shirt and one pair of stockings” while other entries show payments being made in cash and clothes, including shoes: “Paid for a pair of shoes for Thompson Fox: £0.4s.0d” 22
Leather boots
“It is agreed to clothe the Widow Coates’ son Grimshaw for service (Viz) to provide him a Coat Westcoat Boots etc.” (Bampton vestry notes 1755)
Text about “foul weather coat” from the Bampton vestry notes, 1755 These clothes were the basic necessities for a man or boy working outdoors, as most of the men did; they lasted well, and they kept out the wet and the cold. Working women wore fewer leather garments, because they did less work outside the house; a woollen shawl could be taken off to dry, and wooden pattens, like small platforms, were worn to keep their wearers’ feet out of the mud, held on with leather straps. Leather could be used to make containers, or to bind wooden buckets together; the 23
strap between a spinning wheel and the treadle which drove it was made from a strip of leather.
A shoe patten
Hobnail boots
The map of the Inclosure Act for Bampton, in 1821, shows that there were three men holding land in Weald with the surname Tanner; Thomas Tanner and John Tanner each owned a cottage and garden of fifteen perches, while Benjamin Tanner held a garden in Weald of three quarters of an acre.
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Inclosure map of Bampton from 1821
The area behind Church View, which had supposedly been the site of tanning pits, an acre of land, including five cottages and gardens, belonged to the Earl of Shrewsbury; the 1821 “Schedule of Inclosure” makes no mention of tanning, but an archaeological survey in 2014 found possible traces of pits when the land was built on. At the same time Joseph Andrews owned a gravel pit in the same area; might this have been confused with a tanning pit? Some of the holdings there were so small that their numbering cannot now be deciphered – a cluster of small cottages, some with no garden at all, surrounding the larger holding in the centre.
A knife and its leather scabbard By the middle of the nineteenth century there was no trace left of the tanning industry, although Rev. J.A.Giles, writing The History of the Parish and Town of Bampton in 1848, and quoting from Robert Plot’s Natural History of Oxford-shire, names it as the first “of the trade and occupation of the inhabitants” , and tells us that it was “once as famous as Woodstock for the manufacture of leathern gloves, gaiters, and other articles fabricated of the same material.” He gives as fresh evidence for tanning in Bampton that “Mr Robins, an old and respectable inhabitant of Bampton, informs me that, about 20 years ago, he excavated some land laying at the back of his house, for the purpose of forming a garden. In the course of this operation, the labourers discovered as many as 40 or 50 tan-pits, most of which were still full of tan; there were, also, several bullock’s horns, which fell to powder after they had been exposed for some time to the air.” Mr Giles thought that these tan-pits had been blocked up for as much as two hundred years, judging by the speed of degeneration of the horns once they had been exposed to air. 25
An 18th century chicken-skin glove Even the glove-trade, he tells us, “is now reduced within the narrowest limits”; there was only one glove-maker still living in the town, and he had to travel far and wide to sell his wares. By 1848, nine-tenths of the people of Bampton were agricultural workers; and Rev Giles added sententiously that “nearly all the
inhabitants manage to pass through life without wearing gloves, although none of them has yet acquired the ability to do without bread and cheese.” Evidently food was more important than clothing.
A pattern for glove making 26
Over a century later, Mr J L Hughes-Owen again quoted “Dr Plot’s glowing account of the industry”; he suggested that glove-making took over when the trade in leather fell away in the eighteenth century. He thought that some of the “commodious houses in Bampton” might have been built for ”the more prosperous of the leather merchants”, but in the end he came to the conclusion that they were built for rich farmers. He echoed Mr Giles in stating that in 1851 there were only three glovers left working in the town. At the same time there were two saddlers and harness-making establishments; there were also twelve men who were boot and shoe makers, making heavy boots for labourers, with thick soles studded with steel hobnails; Bampton-made boots were said to last for fourteen or fifteen years if they were properly looked after; they would have been preserved with dubbin, another by-product of beef.
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Bampton Today All visible signs of tanning have now simply disappeared; we rely on hearsay from 400 years ago, from one particular seventeenth century historian. In putting together this booklet, therefore, we have to surmise quite a lot. We are told that there were tanning pits in what is now Rosemary Lane, and also around the Youth Club. The archaeological survey carried out there by Oxfordshire County Council found remains of some stone structures: square holes in the ground were discovered in a garden on the west side of Church View.
The excavation of the ‘square holes in the griund’ How do we know that these structures were in fact tanning pits? Could they be water cisterns from an age when almost all households in Bampton had a well and were dependent on it for water? Excavations in other parts of the country found some tell-tale signs of the tanning industry – not least a large number of horns, which in the skinning process were left attached to the hides. We have not found any mention of such clues in histories of Bampton; the only primary source is Robert Plot (1677), quoted first by Giles and then by Hughes-Owen. However, this lack of evidence does not mean that 28
the tanning industry did not exist in seventeenth century Bampton. We know from the tanning process that pits were needed. We assume that these pits were made of local stone. We know from old prints that the pits were not very large; they could be as small as one metre square. We can see in tanning industries of third-world countries, which are at the technological equivalent stage of Bampton in the 17th century, that the tanning pits were on the surface. It is possible that the stone pits were lined with local Thames valley clay to make them watertight. Both the clay and the stone would easily disintegrate into the land as soon as they were disused. The pits were relatively small, and could easily be filled in and the stone used elsewhere. We know, for example, that almost all cottages kept a pig in a pigsty near the main dwelling; now that that is no longer a part of the daily economy the pigsties have gone too. Similarly, the wells that the people of Bampton depended on for their water have also gone. Once these small installations are no longer in use, they simply disappear, so evidence for a whole industry could easily vanish. It is possible that all rural, agricultural communities would have supported a tanning industry, however small. There would have been hides, from the livestock of farmers; there would have been a demand for leather for tough forms of clothing, for shoes and boots and for harness for horses and straps for the farm carts. Less than a hundred year ago every rural community of a certain size would have had a shoemaker and a saddler; Bampton had both into the 1960s. Mr P.O. Money made shoes and boots ‘for the gentry’; his shop and workshop were in Stenton Cottage in Bridge Street. When he set up shop, he took over the practice of an earlier shoe maker. Mr Chandler was a saddler whose workshop was above the gateway next to Wheelgate House; he shut up shop within living memory. Although it would be nice to think of these as a vestige of our old 17th century tanning industry, it is more likely that they were normal trades for all rural communities of a certain size.
Mr. Money the shoemaker 29
Mr. Chandler
Mr. Chandler’s workshop 30
According to various Oxfordshire Trade Gazettes, in random years there were many trades associated with the tanning industry in Bampton and Weald. In 1842 Pigot’s Trade Directory lists three bootand shoemakers and one saddler and harness maker. In 1852, Gardiner’s History and Gazeteer and Directory of the County of Oxford states that ‘Tradition speaks of a considerable commerce in gloves being carried out here [in Bampton]; so great, indeed, as to rival the far-famed Woodstock in this kind of manufacture’. No signs of this happy state are now visible. The preparation of leather is also mentioned as having once been ‘of some account’; but foul odours from tanpits no longer offend the nostrils of passengers along Bampton’s streets. Gardiner goes on to list ‘1 glover, 2 saddle and harness makers, 2 shoe makers and 1 boot and shoe maker.’ It seems that tanning has moved elsewhere, leaving the skilled craftsman to work with the finished leather. However, we do seem to have had a disproportionate number of inhabitants with the name of ‘Tanner’. Could they be the descendants of the craftsmen of the seventeenth century and earlier? If we look up the name ‘Tanner’ in the census returns of the 19th century, there are 44 in 1841; 46 in 1851; 62 in 1861; 61 in 1871; 71 in 1881; 52 in 1891, and 63 in 1901. There are still people named Tanner living in Bampton. So if there is any legacy from the tanning industry of the seventeenth century – if indeed it did exist – it seems that the name ‘Tanner’ is the most enduring, together with a few, well-buried, ambivalent stone-built foundations.
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