Menswear
No brands that make men's wellies in Blaenau Gwent are listed yet.
No brands listed yet
We're still researching this subcategory and would love your help. If you run a British-made brand that belongs here, list your brand. If you know of one, please tell us about it so we can review and add it to the directory.
Perhaps there's a gap in the market. This could even be your opportunity to establish a new British label.
This independent directory lists UK-made clothing brands, and marks those that make only some items here.Why choose British-made?
The wellington boot, or welly, takes its name from Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington. He asked his bootmaker, Hoby of St James's Street in London, to adapt the Hessian boot worn by soldiers of the day. The leather boot that resulted, which appeared around 1817, was made of soft calfskin, had no tassel, fitted closely and came to mid-calf. It stayed in fashion into the 1840s. The rubber welly followed the vulcanisation of rubber, patented in Britain and the United States in 1843 and 1844, which made rubber tough and stable. In 1853 the American Hiram Hutchinson began making rubber boots in France, and by 1856 another American, Henry Lee Norris, had founded a rubber works in Edinburgh. During the First World War the Edinburgh works made over a million pairs of waterproof boots for the British army to cope with flooded trenches, and it supplied the forces again in the Second World War. By 1945 wellies were everyday wet-weather wear for men, women and children, and they remain common on farms, at country shows and at festivals. British-made wellies today continue that tradition.