Steyning Museum Archives: Glovers and Whittawars
Steyning Museum Archives:Delving back into our early archives, we find many mentions of cottage-industries in Steyning which grew over the years into thriving trades.One of these was glove-making, which developed alongside Steyning’s burgeoning tanneries. An important job linking the two was that of the whittawar – the producer of white leather.
In about 1325, the Luttrell Psalter’s illustrations showed men working in the fields, wearing gloves. According to our archives,1392 saw the earliest recorded glover in the borough of Steyning.From the mid 1400s, the Court Rolls of Steyning (translated from Latin) relate the misdemeanours of various tradesmen, including whittawars, and the judgements made against them.For example, in 1467 “In the Court of Morowspeche in the borough of Steyning ... Richard White and William Spenser are dressers of white skins and have used their art against the form of statute ...”They were fined 2d (two old pence, worth approximately £5 now, so perhaps not a great enough deterrent).
We can only assume that “using their art against the statute” actually meant breaking the law.Evidently, they kept on doing it, being found guilty with persistent regularity over the following years.Crime clearly ran in the family.At the Court of 1st June 1471, John Spenser, dresser of white leather, was castigated by the burgesses for having “taken excessive profit” and fined, following which, at the same meeting, he was elected as a burgess himself!
Whittawarying’ was a skilled trade.All other leathers were tanned, using a potent mixture of animal excrement, lime, tanin and oak bark, the foul smell of which no doubt pervaded the whole of Steyning.White leathers were dressed with a mixture of alum, oil and salt.They were mainly used in the making of gloves.
Indeed, the demand was strong.Before soap was readily available for the washing of hands, gloves were worn by all classes of society, from agricultural labourers to the monarch him/herself, to avoid contamination from the noxious dirt of everyday life.
The skins used by glovers varied, according to their purpose, from doeskins to cow-hides and everything in between.Even a lost dog, sought with a reward in the Sussex Weekly Advertiser in 1789, caused his owner to worry that he might have become a pair of imitation doeskin gloves.
As our documents show, glove-making grew into a big enterprise in mid-1600s Steyning, with several competing glovers working in the borough.In the 1700s, this tradecontinued to flourish.When glove-maker Robert Holden died in 1709, as well as various skins and tools, his inventory included 18 gross of buttons, 4 lbs of thread and 8 oz of silk, indicating that he made gloves for the gentry.
In 1706, at his death, Thomas Dennett’s inventory included 138 pairs of gloves for sale, described as London gloves, women’s, girls’, half-handed, men’s, boys’ and men’s outseamed gloves.The latter were hardwearing gloves worn by carpenters and masons.We know that just two years before his death, he took on a poor young apprentice – Mary Clarkson of Upper Beeding, whose certificate decrees that “her apprenticeship should not serve to make her a settlement in Steyning.”Sadly, on the untimely death of her master, her apprenticeship ended and she had to return to Beeding with nothing.
By the start of the nineteenth century, there was only one glover listed in Steyning.Whether our glove-making industry waned because the railways enabled easier distribution of factory-made goods, or because of the easing of social traditions, or perhaps the ready availability of soap for hand-washing, we don’t know.What do you think?
If you’d like to know more about Steyning’s old cottage industries, come and see our splendid new exhibition.Entry to the museum is always FREE.