Looking back to when Watford had a wealth of shoemakers

Back in 1884 there were at least ten boot and shoemakers’ shops in the High Street; nine in nearby streets and at least one each in Oxhey and Bushey.

In Oxhey, George Hayes, whose father was a shoemaker, owned shops in ‘Paddock Road’ and 191 High Street. William Hayes, likely to have been his brother, traded in Aldenham Road, Bushey and Cassio Hamlet. Twenty of the 21 shops were owned by individuals, except Freeman, Hardy and Willis which was established the previous year and the only familiar name today albeit with changed ownership and online trading.

Master Bootmaker George Higgs established his Boot, Shoe and Leather Warehouse at 200 High Street in 1874 near Benskins Brewery after 20 years’ practical experience in the leather trade at 226 and 198 High Street. He offered ‘superior goods, specially selected for style, durability and workmanship, suitable for the country trade.’ His wholesale and retail boot and shoe department sold men’s, women’s and children’s boots and shoes. He specialised in men’s and boys’ strong leather leggings of his own manufacture, men’s heavy ‘watertights’ and boys’ strong nailed boots. Boots and shoes had to be tough in those carless days. The unmade roads were hard-baked in summer and muddy in winter, with flooding occurring throughout the year especially in Water Lane and Lower High Street.

George Higgs' advertisement, 1884. Image: Henry Williams' 'History of Watford'

All Mr Higgs’ boots and shoes were priced for ‘ready money only’, which enabled him to offer customers savings of ten to 20 per cent; ‘a greater discount than at any other shoe shop’. His sales patter was ‘genuine new goods at low prices’, ‘no common rubbish, job nor old stock kept.’

Busy Mr Higgs also sold American cloth and chamois, and made portmanteaus, luggage straps, bags, school satchels, tan gloves, housemaids’ gloves and hedging cuffs. Traditional hedging cuffs or hedging gloves had been made from thick horsehide by skilled leather workers for centuries; an indicator of Watford’s rural past. The right-hand glove was more supple for grasping bill-hooks, whilst the left-hand glove pushed through hedges and gripped branches. Each glove was made from two inverted ‘U’ shapes; an additional piece attached to the palm for the thumb, part of which was cut at an angle from the palm piece, with the resulting flap turned outwards. The glove was then gathered up in rolls and stitched with a thick hide thong.

The British Shoe Co. Ltd. On right, J. Sears & Co. (True-Form Boot Co.) Ltd., 105 & 107A High Street. The Eight Bells and Boots dome further on left, c1910.

By the turn of the century, George Higgs had retired with his wife to 37 St John’s Road, Watford. He died in 1910, leaving £16,000 in his will, worth more than £2 million today. Warwickshire-born William Batcheldor, boot and shoe maker, took over his shop and the significant goodwill. By the late 1920s, bootmaker Herbert W. Higgins was trading on the premises.

George Sturman's shop in Queens Road on left between the Queen's Arms lamp and the first canopy, early 1900s.

George Sturman also grew up in the trade. His father was a bootmaker, his mother a boot binder. In the 1860s, he lived at 15 Queen Street (later Queens Road) with a number of families, before moving to 209 Queen Street where he employed a man and honed his trade from the early 1880s. In 1895, George Sturman’s Family Boot and Shoe Warehouse opened at The Arcade, Queen Street, opposite the then-Public Library and next to the Queen’s Arms public house. He claimed to have the largest assorted stock in the county and many years’ West End experience. ‘Sturman is a practical man’ declared one of his advertisements. Practical in terms of his boots, shoes or dealings with customers I wondered, then I discovered his circular trade mark with the words ‘Ease, Elegance, Economy’! He also made and sold dress and dancing shoes, ‘needlework slippers mounted’ and ‘the best assortment’ of cricket and tennis boots and shoes. I can’t imagine playing tennis, as I do, in boots!

George Sturman's advertisement, 1894. Image: Henry Williams' 'History of Watford'

In the late 1890s, George and his wife Mary Ann retired to Battle in Sussex. He died in 1902, but the shop was still trading under his name in the late 1940s. By then, shoe shoppers were spoilt for choice. In Oxhey at that time, Alfred Cox was at 18 Villiers Road, J. Matthews at 99 Villiers Road and Frank Hawkes at 1 Chalk Hill, making shoes and repairing them on site. But in Watford, familiar ‘factory to wearer’ names such as Barratt, Bata, Dolcis, Lilley and Skinner, Saxone and Clark’s (Peter Lord) were proliferating. In later years, who can ever forget the fluoroscope or the wood-encased shoe-fitting x-ray device at Peter Lord! Children found them fascinating but the risks of unregulated radiation hastened their withdrawal by the 1970s.

With thanks to Debbie Sessions, www.vintagedancer.com

• Lesley Dunlop is the daughter of the late Ted Parrish, a well-known local historian and documentary filmmaker. He wrote 96 nostalgic articles for the ‘Evening Post-Echo’ in 1982-83 which have since been published in ‘Echoes of Old Watford, Bushey and Oxhey’, available at www.pastdayspublishing.com and Bushey Museum. Lesley is currently working on ‘Two Lives, Two World Wars’, a companion volume that explores her father’s and grandfather’s lives and war experiences, in which Watford, Bushey and Oxhey’s history will take to the stage once again.