Towns > Dundee > 1822 - Dundee delineated; or, A history and description of that town, its institutions, manufactures and commerce

95
was expended ; and the whole manufacturing gave
employment to 32 tanners, 12 curriers for dressing
that intended for shoes, 150 shoemakers for mak-
ing boots and shoes for exportation, and 200 shoe-
makers for supplying the consumption of the town.
The value of boots and shoes exported was com-
puted about £6923. At that time the demand fer
tanned leather was great and increasing ; new com-
panies to carry the manufacture still farther were
formed ; a considerable difficulty was found in pro-
curing a sufficient number of raw hides, and oak
bark had doubled in its price. This excess conti-
nued for some time ; and the business in all its de-
partments seemed so firmly established, so widely
extended, and so amply supported by capital, that
it was thought next to impossible it could be sha-
ken ; yet, in less than thirty years, there are only
two poor remnants of tan -yards : the rest are either
completely annihilated, or converted to other pur-
poses ; and there is no foreign exportation of boots
or shoes. The whole trade seems to have removed
to England ; and Dundee is now supplied with
leather chiefly from the London market.
About the same time with the success of thetan-
ning, or perhaps some time previous, a most exten-
sive manufacture was carried on for the preparation
of coloured thread for sewing. The business, al-
most peculiar to this town, had been established in
the beginning of last century; and in 1 793 there were
iseven different companies, or masters, who used 66
[twisting-mills in the town, and employed 1340 spin-
jners in different parts of the country. It required
1370 servants to make the vara into thread ; for the