Shoe lasts are essential to cordwainers, aka shoe makers. They are used to shape the top of the shoe, to stretch the leather and tack it in place for the sole to be added later. The tack holes on the bottom of wooden lasts are how you can tell a true last from a purely decorative one. This last, with Mobbs & Lewis stamped on the side, raised the question of whether the company was a shoe maker or a last maker. It turns out it was a British company that made both iron and wooden lasts in the 20th century.
The 1914 Who’s Who in Business describes the company as:
Makers of Lasts, Shoe Display Forms and Shoe Machinery, Carrington Street, Kettering, and 29, Ber Street, Norwich. Hours of Business: 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.; Saturdays, close at 1 p.m. Established in 1885 by H. W. Mobbs and A. Lewis. Incorporated as a Limited Company in 1900. Directors: H. W. Mobbs (Chairman), A. Lewis and H. G. Gotch (Secretary). Premises: Consist of three factories and three stores. Staff: 180. Specialities: Easy Exit Lasts, which can be withdrawn from a boot and re-inserted during the process of Manufacture. ” British ” Boot-Treeing Machine, “Fibre Filler,” “Easy Exit Last ‘ in Iron, ” Wedge-Hinge Last ‘ in Wood, ” Gap-Spring Last ” in Wood. Patents: Several for Lasts and for Shoe Display Forms. Connection: United Kingdom, Foreign and Colonial. Telephone: No. 7 Kettering. Code: A B C (5th Edition). Bankers: London City and Midland Bank, Ltd. Mr. H. W. Mobbs is a well-known Lecturer to Technical Students on Trade Subjects.
Mobbs & Lewis iron lasts were made in their factory on Carrington Street in Kettering, a town in Northhamptonshire, England, as shown in this iron foundry photo from the 1920s.
The Kettering facility continued to be used until it was rebuilt in 1961 when the company switched from using Canadian maple lasts to plastic ones. (When they stopped making iron lasts, I was not able to ferret out.) In 1964, Mobbs & Lewis became Mobbs Miller when they merged with the O.A. Miller Last Co.
The maple wooden last that started this rabbit hole excursion was made by Mobbs & Lewis at a subsidiary in Grand Falls, New Brunswick, Canada.
References:
Built to Last: The Buildings of the Northamptonshire Boot and Shoe Industry, by Kathryn A. Morrison with Ann Bond.
1 comment
Loving the last. My father was the senior designer of shoes at MobbsMiller, and prior to that, Mobbs & Lewis, where he designed pullover uppers to put onto the lasts to display and sell the lasts to shoe manufacturers throughout the UK at trade shows. His name was John Wilfred Hooper, known across the trade as Wilf Hooper. He worked at MobbsMiller from early days after completing his National Service as a tank driver in the early 50s. He returned in the 1990’s with over 40 years service there, and I, Ian followed him into the footwear industry some 42 years ago, in which I have remained throughout, living 15 of those years in China (Where the Yin Hwa last company, which was born of MobbsMiller still operates!) and another 2 years in Vietnam, before coming back to live back in Kettering. In fact, I parked my car along Carrington Street, site of MobbsMiller this morning! My father was also the person responsible for the MobbsMiller signage, at one point painted down the large sign that hung outside the production site as well as all the give-away items they handed out at trade shows, such as the rulers / tape measures / measuring tables and gauges. Wonderful to see the last there with the metal toe plate which protected the toe from being dented or broken when used to last uppers, or when thrown around after the last was slipped from the shoe. Would love to get my hands on that for my collection, but it appears that it cannot ship in the sales website. All the wooden lasts were eventually disposed of, and having a coal fire at home, we used to thrown a few on the fire in the evenings! My job was to scrape out the metal fragments from the interior hinges and respective plates from the fire grate each morning! It makes me cringe now to think that we, and many other families at the time burnt these on their fires. To see one with Mobbs and Lewis on it is a joy! The old site of MobbsMiller is now a block of flats. And they call that progress! The good news, their former competitor, Springline Lasts in Northampton is still going strong, and I visit there almost monthly, to be surrounded by vintage lasts and other blokes of a certain age who remember MobbsMiller very well.