One of the forgotten occupations found in some family trees is that of patten-maker. Few people today even know what pattens were but they were once quite commonplace.

Mentioned by William Shakespeare, Samuel Pepys and Thomas Hardy, pattens were in continuous use from the 1300s to the mid-19th century. Sometimes resembling clogs or sandals, they have been described both as overshoes and undershoes but the meaning is the same. They were worn outside (over) ordinary shoes and acted as platforms underneath to protect the wearer’s shoes and clothes from the filth, horse dung and human excrement in the streets. Although men did wear pattens, particularly those working outdoors, they were primarily worn by and associated with women.

Pattens could be noisy. In Persuasion Jane Austen refers to “the ceaseless clink of pattens”. They were generally taken off indoors. The Brontë sisters’ aunt, Miss Branwell, was considered odd for keeping hers on. They could be awkward to walk in. Constance Hill in Jane Austen her Homes and her Friends (1902) writes: “It is true that in bad weather ladies could walk for a short distance in pattens, which were foot clogs supported upon an iron ring that raised the wearer a couple of inches from the ground. But these were clumsy contrivances.”

Clumsy or not they could be extreme fashion accessories. Some spectacularly elevated pattens were worn by women in Turkey in the 1700s and some early Venetian pattens were so high that the ladies wearing them leaned on their servants for support. Chinese ladies wore elaborate porcelain pattens of more moderate height.

The most common pattens were wooden platforms with leather or cloth straps to hold the shoes, and an iron ring and uprights attached to the platforms. In the 18th century ladies’ silk or embroidery pattens could be made to match their shoes. The patten-making trade incorporated many skills including carpentry, leatherworking and embroidery.

Early 19th century newspapers contained many advertisements for and by patten-makers (often ‘boot, shoe and patten makers’), with pattens, patten-rings and patten-ties also sold separately. However, pattens went out of use in the latter half of the century with the surfacing of roads and pavements and the arrival of galoshes. In 1889 the St James Gazette already refers to pattens as extinct: “In the recent Lord Mayor’s show the Patten-makers Company was represented, but lest any should cry out for the abolition of this worshipful body on the grounds that their occupation is gone… It may be mentioned that they are the guardians of the skate making industry.” Even earlier in 1869 in A Memoir of Jane Austen, James Edward Austen Leigh wrote of his aunts: “when the roads were dirty the sisters took long walks in pattens. This defence against wet and dirt is now seldom seen.”

The Worshipful Company of Pattenmakers was and still is one of London’s livery companies. These companies were associations of craftsmen with membership controlled by apprenticeship. Members were able to earn the much desired Freeman status vital in enabling company members to work and trade within the square mile, and today Liverymen still elect London’s Lord Mayor. The Pattenmakers Company was awarded its charter in 1670 but was a trade association as early as 1379. As pattens were mostly worn by women the company motto of the Livery Company is: Recipiunt foeminae sustentacular nobis (‘women receive support from us’).

Livery Companies were governed by an annually-elected court and in the 1830s there were well-reported disputes within the company between the court and many freemen over the transparency of accounts, governance, and who had the right to vote for masters and wardens. The dispute was resolved and the company became more open as a result.

The company’s website includes a list of masters from 1670 to the present day and a similar list of clerks from 1669; older records were mostly lost in the Great Fire of London. There is a permanent exhibition of pattens and pattenmaking at St Margaret Pattens Church in Rood Lane featuring the tools of the last working patten maker, William Gardner, who died in 1903. It also includes ‘poulaine-style’ pattens (used to accommodate poulaines, the very pointed shoes fashionable in the 17th and 18th centuries), some children’s pattens, and a pair of 18th century pattens with matching shoes. The church was so named because pattens were made and sold nearby in and around Rood Lane. Panels with the names of past masters can be found on the south wall, and there is still a notice requesting ‘women to leave their pattens before entering’. (This is because of the loud clinking noise.) Similar notices were found in churches elsewhere and one had a board with pegs for ladies to hang their pattens on.

Some livery companies, such as the Goldsmiths and Fishmongers, are still active in their trade, while others, like the Fan Makers, have switched to modern equivalents (air conditioning). Many, like the patternmakers, have lost their trade. The Pattenmakers Company has, however, reinvented itself with a significant membership from the shoe trade with targeted awards and grants and funding for special orthopaedic shoes.

Family historians can learn a great deal from the Freedom of the City Admission Papers, 1681-1925, a collection at the London Metropolitan Archives containing papers associated with application for Freemen status for the City of London. In one such document dated to 1813 we read of the indenture arrangements of a 13-year-old boy from Cambridgeshire named William apprenticed to one Bartholomus Dawes, a “citizen and patten-maker of London”. William agrees to learn Bartholomew’s art “the term being seven years” and to “swear good and true to his Majesty the King” (George IV). For this seven-year period there is a long list of don’ts – he must not “indulge in fornication or matrimony, play at card, dice or tables” and “not haunt taverns or playhouses”.

Money changed hands to secure this apprenticeship: “The said master in consideration of the sum of sixty pounds, being the money given with the said apprentice.” In return Bartholomew provided “meat, drink, apparel and lodging and all other necessities” for the apprenticeship period. William became a free member of the company in 1821.

Bartholomew Dawes (1786-1853) was born in Soho to Thomas and Hannah Dawes. In 1802 he was indentured to one Henry Dawes, presumably a relative, and subsequently became a free member of the Worshipful Pattenmakers. In 1810 aged just 24 Bartholomew was important enough for his attendance at a 15s per head dinner at the London Coffee House, Ludgate Hill to be advertised in the Public Ledger and Daily Advertiser.

Although a prominent member of the Pattenmakers, Bartholomew made his living as a cabinet maker and upholsterer and lived in Soho a district known for these trades. Even then, many companies were losing the connection with their trades. Thus George Barland, a grocer of Petticoat Lane, became a member of the Worshipful Company of Wheelwrights in 1804. A grocer belonging to the wheelwrights was not so strange; few new members knew how to make wheels, the connection having become nominal.

Bartholomew Dawes was a significant figure in the Worshipful Pattenmakers for some time and is found on the Masters List for 1823, 1840 and 1853. He never married and died in Ham, then in Surrey, leaving his money to his sister and her husband.

Useful sources:

• Freedom of the City Admission Papers 1681-1925
• janeaustensworld.com
• The Victorian City by Judith Flanders, Atlantic Books, 2012
• liverycompanies.info
• pattenmakers.co.uk