John the Elder (General)

by Jefff , West London, Middlesex, Thursday, January 08, 2015, 03:23 (3608 days ago) @ Danhaynes03uk

Your welcome to the links Dan, no problems.
Also thanks for mentioning your background knowledge, this forum gets visitors from Monmouth to Mongolia (well, almost) so it can be hard to know what level to pitch the answers.

Re John the shoemaker, don't forget in those days, especially in an area where most men needed good boots for working in the pits, and most provisions were bought locally, every town and even village had at least one shoemaker; probably doing a lot of repairs as well as making new, and all properly stitched etc leather then, no stick-on plastic soles !. No disrespect at all to John, he was clearly a skilled craftsman, but we're not necessarily talking footwear you might find worn by a wealthy gent in the city, perhaps made in Northampton say. Those shoemakers who felt they offered a better class of product sometimmes called themselves cordwainers, wheras John doesn't appear to. Hence I would say the links I've given, to the Trade Directories etc, are probably the nearest you'll find in terms of more written info about him. The other usual place to look would be the old Newspapers, as Mike is already doing.

For cordwainer see http://rmhh.co.uk/occup/c2.html