The shoemakers at Port Arthur made shoes and boots, and it is important to distinguish between the two. A shoe is a type of footwear that covers the foot, and
commonly ends at or below the ankle. A boot, on the other hand, extends above the ankle — different styles dictating the amount of leg covered.

Initially, the Convict Department favoured issuing public works convicts with shoes rather than boots; however, boots were strictly favoured after the 1840s. In the early 1830s, leather was seldom cut at the settlement unless it had been supplied from Hobart Town, and most shoes were made from ready-cut Englishleather.

This suggests the emphasis was placed on maximising output and not on skill training. James Sly was appointed as overseer and chief leather cutter to the shoemakers’ establishment in 1833 and put in charge of forty men. While Sly was under the impression that he was to teach shoemaking and that his wife would instruct girls in shoe binding, his expectations were not exactly realised.

Most of the materials arrived ready-cut, and convicts simply had to put the pieces of shoe together. In other words, the settlement sought to maximise output at the expense of training master shoemakers, and in this respect shoemaking at Port Arthur resembled the cheaper end of the British trade. Indeed the role played by Mrs Sly suggests that some were employed in processes that mirrored the basket work of women and children. Under Sly’s superintendence most of the convict shoemakers were able to turn out four pairs per week.

Last edited by fxh (2011-02-01 02:49:16)

sarcasm will get you nowhere with me

yeah - I've just got back from CBD and I realise it wasn't snarky. I just don't know how someone with my hippy naivety would automatically think of snark. Must be the weather and floods etc.

Its from a PhD I found a bit of from Tasmania. I'm trying to track down the author to get the full copy. I'm interested where clothes come from and how they were worn by the ordinary people over time. We have a lot of documentation of style, codes, rules of the ascendancy but not a lot about what went on on "the street". For one many couldn't write anyway and even if they did the fashions of the street weren't considered suitable for documenting until very recently.

That part of my interest in the mugshots series from Sydney police in the 1920s. Beautiful clear posed photos of ordinary people (crims) in their street clothes.

The other aspect that not any people realise these days was how far away, in both time and money required to travel, from the rest of the world Australia was before air travel and the internet. Even now the quickest to get to USA takes 15 hours at least. UK Europe more. This coupled with a very very different climate,and way of life plus the attitude of an ex penal colony plus the increasing multicultural mix post war forged some variations (or on another view some puzzling lack of variation and adaptation) in dress from the rest of the world.

I'm also interested in how we as a nation tend to export our raw materials as,  er um as well, raw materials and don't value add. Wool is a good example. Zegna and others used to (and possibly still do) come over to Tasmania (our own much loved backwater) and buy the "Golden Bale" of the most expensive superfine merino wool and take it back to Italy or UK and weave it and tailor it and send it back to us. Why didn't we develop weaving and tailoring skills? Or did we have them but lose then or was it a very good dose of both these things.

Last edited by fxh (2011-02-07 23:23:09)

Certainly what to some extent the colonies where supposed to do but hell its ages ago we were subject to English rule. I wasn't aware of Hamiltons Report - nor of Hamilton although I know the general mercantilist arguments..

There has been and still is a strong streak of mercantilism here, however in the last 20 years there has been a gradual lowering of tariff barriers and subsidies - although not so much to certain farmers and car manufacturers.

The current textile tariff from memory is 10% lowering to 5% in the next few years. I can't remember if the tariff is to eventually get to zero.

So we export wool, largely unsubsidised outside of "normal" generous conditions for agriculture, its woven in UK/Italy etc then we import it back as suits/jackets etc  with a a 10% extra tariff!

Many subsidies and tariffs in the agriculture sector have disappeared and the industry is the stronger for it. Unfortunately other places, USA/EU in particular still have massive agricultural subsidies and these skew the "Free Trade" Agreements.

We still have the absurd situation of a world wide sugar glut as far as I know, and yet marginal sugar farms that should have closed years ago here are massively subsidised in Queensland thus perpetuating an inefficient industry and preventing poorer countries who would benefit from selling us sugar from doing so.

The Australian manufacturing industry was kick started after the war and was heavily protected - on both sides - subsidies and tariffs - there was a substantial textile industry around then but exactly what it did I'm not sure of details.

We had substantial textile tariffs and protection up until the the 80s and the Hawke/Keating Labor government started a radical program of deregulation, free(er) trade and floating our dollar.

I don't really understand why our textiles didn't endure - I'm sure our costs would have been lower than the UK costs for the similar product - my sense is it was the long regime of subsidies and protection that made them unable and unwilling to adapt.