The leather industry was important in South West Scotland from
early in the regions history. Preparation of skins and hides
produced leather, parchment and sheepskins for various purposes
including the manufacture of gloves and footwear. Although the
industry became quite large it was for a long time carried out
without any large companies being involved. One small business was
started in Kilmarnock by George Clark in 1783 which eventually grew
into a small company run by his son James. Shoemaking was by the
beginning of the 1900's concentrated in Ayrshire, around the towns
of Maybole, Ayr and
Kilmarnock despite the fact that hardly any of the leather
was tanned in Ayrshire by this time (The town of Maybole had ten
factories employing 1,500 people and produced over one million
pairs of shoes and boots every year!). Clark's company expanded and
in 1908 it merged with the English company Abbott to form Saxone
and at it's height employed over a thousand workers. Now operated
by Burlington International, Saxone still produce shoes and their
shops are a common sight in many high streets. Other sections of
the industry have faired less well, at the end of the second world
war only two of the original ten factories in Maybole survived
employing only a fifth of the workforce which had operated there
only fifty years previously; this was in part due to a decreased
demand for heavy boots and partly as a result of the disruption
caused by the war. By the late 1960's the industry was almost
totally gone there.