Men's Shoes and Footwear Made in Northern Ireland — Voted by the Community

Britain has a long shoemaking tradition. In London, the cordwainers, as makers of shoes from new leather were known, received their first ordinances in 1272 and a royal charter in 1439. Northampton had a guild of shoemakers by 1401. Northampton's rise owed much to military orders. In 1642 the town's shoemakers made 4,000 pairs of shoes and 600 pairs of boots for the army. By 1841 the census recorded 1,821 shoemakers in Northampton, and the county became one of the world's best-known centres of quality footwear. In the nineteenth century Northampton factories adopted Goodyear welting, a machine method developed in the United States in the 1860s by mechanics working for Charles Goodyear Jr. The welt is stitched to both the upper and the insole, and the outsole is then stitched to the welt, so the shoe can be resoled several times. The brogue grew from the bróg, a rough shoe worn in Ireland and Scotland. The oxford is often linked to Oxford students of the early 1800s, although its origin is uncertain. Contemporary British-made shoes carry on this heritage, combining traditional construction with modern refinements.