Military efforts
Remembrance Day on November 11, 2020, also known as Armistice Day, marks 102 years since the end of the First World War. People in Northampton and Northamptonshire have specialised in making shoes for hundreds of years. Their shoemaking reputation as producers of good quality men’s footwear and military footwear was sealed in 1648 when shoemaker Thomas Pendleton obtained a contract for 2,500 shoes to be made for Oliver Cromwell’s parliamentary army going to Ireland in 1649. The United Kingdom manufactured about 70 million pairs of boots and shoes for the Allied armies during the First World War, and 50 million of these were made in Northamptonshire. This 1914-18 British Army boot. Regulation No 2, Eton Balmoral boot, was manufactured by Simon Collier Ltd, Harlestone Road, Northampton. They boasted that the two million boots they made would stretch in line toe to heel from Northampton to Edinburgh.
Northampton Museums 