The Shoe Museum

For museum in Marikina, Philippines, see Marikina Shoe Museum.

The Shoe Museum
The Shoe Museum is located in Somerset
The Shoe Museum
Location within Somerset and the United Kingdom
Established1951
Dissolved27 September 2019
LocationStreet, Somerset, England
Coordinates51°07′44″N 2°44′22″W / 51.1290°N 2.7394°W / 51.1290; -2.7394

The Shoe Museum in Street, Somerset, England exhibited shoes dating from the Roman era to the present day. The museum closed on 27 September 2019.[1]

It showed the history of the Clark family and their company C. & J. Clark and its connection with the development of shoemaking in the town,[2] as well as the Latin Verse Machine, a poetry generator built by C. & J. Clark's cousin John Clark in the 1830s.[3][4]

The Clarks started making slippers, shoes and boots in the town in the 1820s and the company grew, introducing mechanised processes in the 1860s.[5] Production continued until after 2000 when it was moved off-shore, using third party factories, predominantly located in Asia. In the 19th century, in line with the family’s Quaker values, the capital was also extended beyond the factory to benefit social initiatives in Street: a school was founded so that young men and women could combine working in the factory with continuing their education, a theatre was opened, a library was built, along with an open-air swimming pool, known as Greenbank, and town hall.[6] The company still has its headquarters in Street, behind a frontage which includes the clock tower and water tower,[7] In 1993 the redundant factory buildings were converted to form Clarks Village.[8]

The museum started in 1951, but was expanded in 1974.[9]

It had examples of shoes from the 200 years of the companies history.[10] The museum also included a display of machinery used in footwear production,[11] and a selection of shop display showcards from the 1930s, 1950s and 1960s,[12] and television advertisements.[13][14]

The museum closed to the public on 27 September 2019, and its artefacts were transferred to the nearby Alfred Gillett Trust.[1]

In September 2023, planning permission was granted to build a new shoe museum next to the Alfred Gillett Trust.[15]

  1. ^ a b D'Albiac, Stephen (26 September 2019). "Clarks Shoe Museum in Street to close after nearly 70 years". SomersetLive. Reach. Retrieved 7 November 2020.
  2. ^ Palmer, Mark (2013). Clarks: made to last; the story of Britain's best-known shoe firm. London: Profile Books. ISBN 978-1-84765-845-6.
  3. ^ Hall, Jason David (1 September 2007). "Popular Prosody: Spectacle and the Politics of Victorian Versification". Nineteenth-Century Literature. 62 (2): 222–249. doi:10.1525/ncl.2007.62.2.222. ISSN 0891-9356.
  4. ^ Sharples, Mike (1 January 2023). "John Clark's Latin Verse Machine: 19th Century Computational Creativity". IEEE Annals of the History of Computing. 45 (1): 31–42. arXiv:2301.05570. doi:10.1109/MAHC.2023.3241258. ISSN 1058-6180.
  5. ^ Scott, Shane (1995). The hidden places of Somerset. Aldermaston: Travel Publishing Ltd. p. 82. ISBN 1-902007-01-8.
  6. ^ Cavendish, Richard (1995). "The Shoe Museum". History Today. 45 (6).
  7. ^ "Main roadside frontage to Clarks Factory, Clock Tower, 5 bay right return and Water Tower". historicengland.org.uk. Retrieved 23 March 2008.
  8. ^ "Street". Visit Somerset. Archived from the original on 5 May 2013. Retrieved 6 June 2012.
  9. ^ "Collection condition survey: contents of Shoe Museum, Street" (PDF). The South Western Federation of Museums and Art Galleries. Retrieved 23 September 2016.
  10. ^ "The Shoe Museum". Culture 24. Retrieved 23 September 2016.
  11. ^ "Shoe Museum". Information Britain. Retrieved 12 July 2009.
  12. ^ "The Shoe Museum, Street". Nothing to see here. Retrieved 12 July 2009.
  13. ^ "The Shoe Museum". Somerset Tourist Guide. Archived from the original on 9 May 2008. Retrieved 12 July 2009.
  14. ^ "The Shoe Museum". What's On Bath. Retrieved 23 September 2016.
  15. ^ Harcombe, Chloe (23 September 2023). "Somerset museum to showcase history of Clarks shoemakers". BBC News.