As in many industries, technological advances brought mechanisation and mass production to the leather trade during the 19th and early 20th centuries. Some sectors progressed, providing employment for hundreds of thousands of our ancestors, while other practices and products grew outmoded, inspiring new ways of processing and using leather.

During this period the preparation of raw animal hides and leather dressing changed radically. The development in the late 1800s of chrome tanning using chemicals signalled the end of traditional vegetable-based processes, while new fashions in leather goods such as fine gloves required softer, suppler skins than the old thicker, more brittle vegetable-treated tanned leather. Consequently many small centuries-old local tanneries with their pits and vats closed and by the early 1900s further scientific advances enabled the manufacture of many different qualities of leather for diverse finished goods, using various processes.

Leather boots and shoes were essential commodities, worn by all, and as the new mechanised factory system extended, less footwear was made at home by outworker artisans and more by teams of skilled factory workers. Considerable competition developed between different manufacturers, large shoe companies like Bata and Clarks employing designers to develop novel styles, while dedicated workers strove to maintain high standards of quality. Northamptonshire was the unrivalled hub of the shoe trade, but shoemaking extended into many locations, other significant centres including Leicester and London. Typically large numbers of local inhabitants worked at their local boot or factory, generations of the same families often employed at the same workplace.

After footwear, traditionally saddlery and harness-making were the largest leather trades, but in the late 1800s mechanisation began to reduce demand. Nonetheless for another 50 years horse-drawn buses, cabs and delivery carts kept the industry alive, and when motorised vehicles came to predominate leather was used for seats, fittings and for fashionable motoring gear including coats, gauntlets and goggles. Saddlers had in fact often made and repaired various leather items for local people and over time many diversified further, making ‘fancy goods’ including purses, wallets, dog collars and leads. As travel expanded via the new railways, and later by road and air, there was rising demand for leather luggage, as well for ladies’ handbags and workers brief cases. Other traditional leather manufactures include leather-bound books, protective headgear for certain occupations and cricket balls. Although today modern man-made materials have replaced much that was once fashioned from animal hides, bespoke and fine leather goods remain desirable luxuries.