Richard Hartwright the Glover born 1761 St Peter’s, Worcester
and a brief history of gloving in Worcestershire.

 

Richard was the third son of William of Clerkenleap and his second wife Mary Mucklow. He was apprenticed to Edmund Wall the glover from 6 May 1776 for seven years, “the consideration money being fifty-two pounds and ten shillings”. On 19 May 1783 Richard’s apprenticeship was completed and he was “admitted and sworn citizen of Worcester City” and married Elizabeth Higgins at St Kenelm’s Church, Clifton-on-Teme on 22 November of the same year. She died in 1791. Richard’s touching memorial to her can be seen inside the church, his stepmother Margaret (nee Taylor) was also buried at Clifton-on-Teme in 1819. It was Richard who devised the bookplate using the family “crest”. I cannot find any further mention of Richard in either the Clifton-on-Teme parish records or the Worcester City Archives. In 1791 his name appears in a trade directory for Birmingham, as a glover living in Ashted Row.

Joseph Bentley’s “Ancient and Modern History of Worcestershire” published in the early 1840’s and W R Amphlett’s 1954 revised “History of the Worcester Glove Trade” are the sources for much of what follows. I have not attempted to verify the number of master glovers.

Gloving was one of the most important industries in Worcester for 700 years. Friar Street together with New Street (first mentioned in 1298 as Glovare Street and subsequently Glovers Street until 1567) was the main gloving area in Worcester until the eighteenth century, when it was expanded, in particular into the Sidbury district of St Peter’s parish. The Glover’s Company is believed to be the oldest in the City having been incorporated in 1497. By the early nineteenth century there were 70 – 100 master glovers in the City employing an estimated 6,000 to 8,000 workers, which included “the industrious poor” in several Herefordshire parishes. The gloves which had originally been rough, tough articles became refined and were known for their excellent quality. These gloves were called “beavers”, and made from wash-leather (sheepskin). Around 1760 a new kind of glove was introduced from Limerick from whence they gained their name, their other name being “flesh” gloves, from being made with the flesh-side outside.

The trade had rapidly expanded during the period of Richard Hartwright’s apprenticeship. In 1785 John Burlingham, a Quaker, introduced a slitting machine which cut out ten pair of gloves in one operation. By 1790 when kid gloves were being made in large quantities, Burlingham had also introduced the ornamenting of the back and top of the gloves with flowers and such like.

Details of a Regency Evening Glove circa 1815 (see next page for more info).Click to see very fine stitching on seams approx 24 stitches to the inch.

 

In 1807 he patented a frame to hold the seam of the glove while being stitched, but this was resisted by the women outworkers in Worcester and it’s surrounding area. The frame produced more regular stitches and a “superior article”, and as a result of the embargo on the frame in Worcester a willing workforce in Evesham and its vicinity was used. In 1821 the patent on the frame lapsed and the stitching frame came into general use in Worcester. For those working in the manufactory cutting and slittting the gloves, Monday was a day-off known as “Saint Monday”. Amphlett states that by the 1840’s there were approximately 140 glove manufacturers, employing 30,000 out-workers in Worcester and the surrounding villages, making 52,000 dozen pairs of gloves a year. These figures appear to be too high as in 1824 foreign gloves were allowed into the UK for the first time. Imports were able to undercut the price of English leather gloves and this together with a change in fashion from leather to light fabric gloves such as silk, cotton and lace, gradually brought about the demise of the long-established industry. Many villagers, particularly women were hard hit as they had supplemented their income as gloving out-workers, especially in the winter months, when farm work was not easy to find. Bentley’s figures of 120 master glovers in 1825 falling to 69 by 1840 are probably the more accurate.

 

 

An 1830’s fashion plate

by permission of the Worcestershire Record Office

Ref 4238 BA705:385 parcel 4

 

In the late 19th century women were finding that they could increase their income from sewing by buying sewing machines which improved the quality of their work.
By 1925 there were only 7,000 employed in the industry, including skilled craftsmen and women out-workers in and around Worcester. Gloves ceased to be made in Worcester in 1981 when the Milore factory closed. Milore had also made specialised gloves for golfing and for period productions on stage and screen. Another name of long standing was Fownes. Fred Hartwright (b.1877 in St Peter’s, Worcester) started working at the Fownes factory when he left school. In the 1901 census his occupation was given as glove leather parer. He would have used a special knife to skillfully slice the hide into a regular thickness, so that the now clean, supple leather would be ready for cutting. Fred was latterly in charge of the Chamois Department, where raw skins from abroad were processed to make white glove leather.

For information about Fownes click here whilst information on Dent’s of Worcester, and glove-making today can be found at www.dents.co.uk/who.htm and www.plal.com/dents.htm. also there is www.cityofworcester.gov.uk. Worcester City Council received a large collection of gloves mainly reproductions, but a selection of these is not yet on display in a City museum.

Here are the names of the processes used produce gloves:-
Dressing; staking; paring which prepared the skin for cutting to obtain a regular thickness of leather. Cutting into squares was performed then slitting into hand shapes. From 1819 it was possible to do this by machine, which punched out the trank (hand), thumb and fourchettes (fingers). Gloveresses carried out the final stages of pointing (lines of fancy stitching), sewing (joining the component parts together) and finishing.