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Spring Lane School and The Boroughs - Images of the last 130 Years
Northampton Castle and the Boroughs
Visit to Imperial War Museum Duxford
Spring Lane School Log Books in the Nineteenth Century
An Education at Spring Lane School, 1928
A New School - A New Start
Cloisters Pocket Park Tidy Up
Cloisters Pocket Park - Official Opening
A Trip to London
Central Area School Buildings Reborn !
The Boroughs 1831
The Boroughs 1610
The Boroughs - Celebrating the Coronation 1937
Memories of the Boroughs
Now and Then - The Boroughs
Vanished Streets of the Boroughs
The Mayorhold
The Boroughs in 1851
Multi-Cultural Event at Spring Lane School, February 26th 2005
Pubs in the Boroughs 1901
A Cache of Photographs from the 1960s
Shoemaking and the Boroughs - the First Shoe Manufactory
Caught in Time - Past Views of the Boroughs
Fun Day, the Boroughs July 22nd 2006
Fun Day Continued
"The Burrows"
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Shoemaking and the Boroughs - the First Shoe Manufactory
Location: Northamptonshire
The people who lived in the Boroughs during the 19th century were mostly employed in the boot and shoe industry
 
Northampton was a small country town of 7000 people in 1800. By the middle of the century the population had increased to over 30,000. The reason for this growth was the development of the shoemaking industry in which the Boroughs was to play a central part. Richard Rowe's comments in 1851 confirm that the Boroughs was already the home of many of the shoemakers of the town
In 1838 the Boroughs was to become the site of the first shoe manufactory in Northampton. Moses Philip Manfield, a newcomer to Northampton from Bristol, bought a workshop in Silver Street and from here traded in footwear, buying the services of local handsewn men, and selling on his goods to an increasingly wide market. Silver Street, see map above, was one of the oldest streets in the town, dating back to the 12th century. At one time, it was home to the medieval Jewish community in Northampton and the site of their synagogue.
Moses Philip Manfield obviously found the location of Silver Street, leading off Sheep Street from the Market Square and running down to the Mayorhold, convenient for his business; there was a ready supply of shoemakers in the rapidly expanding Boroughs. At this time the use of machinery had not yet become a commonplace in the industry and it was not until the late 1850s that the Singer sewing machine replaced handsewing in the closing of shoe uppers.
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