Hailing two giants of a shoe empire

December 1, 2003

HOWLETT DRIVE (Rawley Road) and
GEORGE WHITE MIDDLE SCHOOL (Silver Road)

IT was back in 1846 that James Howlett invested the huge sum of £10,000 in the Norwich leather-currying business of Robert Tillyard.

That was the start of a shoe-making empire that would become famous across the world and later turned into the Norvic Shoe Company.

John Godfrey Howlett, left, and George White.

At the time, Tillyard was operating from rooms on Elm Hill, but the money allowed him to move to bigger premises and expand — first in Princes Street, then in Swan Lane and later to St George’s Plain.

James encouraged his son, John Godfrey Howlett, to take an interest in the company and eventually he did. He studied the leather trade and by 1859 was cutting the uppers for harness and heavy boots.

He went on the road, travelling by pony and trap, collecting orders and covering vast distances.

It was during a trip to Bourne in Lincolnshire that he met customer Thomas White and his 14-year-old son George.

George White was to become a famous Norwich man, a real working class hero.

He agreed to join the Howlett company as a junior clerk in 1856 and worked his way to the top.

Eventually the firm become known as Howlett & White and it was White who realised that the policy of employing people who worked from home was wasting time, so they built factories.

The factory at St George’s Plain grew to become one of the great shoe-making centres in the country, employing almost 2,000 people and producing 25,000 pairs of shoes a week.

A life-long Liberal, George White was a man of the people. He had no formal education and started working at the age of 16. He never forgot his workers and looked after them well.

Although a shoe baron, men across the country asked him to speak on their behalf during industrial disputes. The other barons must have hated him.
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In 1897, a strike by Norwich shoe workers lasted seven months. It was led by John Mason.

One day George met John in the street and was told they were going back to work because the strike pay had failed to arrive. White paid it and the strike continued. After it was finally settled, John was branded a troublemaker. No one would give him a job — so George did.

In 1900, when he was 58, George became MP for North-West Norfolk. In 1907 he was knighted and three years later was made a Freeman of the City of Norwich.

When he died in 1912 aged 72, the city came to a standstill.

Hundreds of people turned out to pay their last respects. Most shops closed early.

The Evening News described him as the father of the shoe industry who played a huge role in the development of Norwich. They named a school after him.

The company moved into the control of the sons of the founders, who also played a major part in civic life in Norwich.

It continued to expand to become the biggest shoe factory under one roof in the British Isles.

George’s son, Sir George Ernest White, became Mayor of Norwich in 1931.

The company merged with the Norvic Shoe Company in 1935 and finally closed in 1981.

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