Hunter Boot SA

General information

A symbol of British country life In 1856 Mr Henry Lee Norris, an American entrepreneur, landed on Scottish soil in search of a home for his boot making company. Having acquired a block of buildings in Edinburgh, known as the Castle Silk Mills, the North British Rubber Company (which much later became known as Hunter Boot Ltd) was registered as a limited liability company in September 1856. In the beginning there were only four people working for the company, by 1875 the team had grown to 600 members of staff. Production of wellington boots were dramatically boosted with the advent of World War I when the company was asked by the War Office to construct a sturdy boot suitable for the conditions in flooded trenches. The mills ran day and night to produce immense quantities of these trench boots. In total, 1,185,036 pairs were made to cope with the Army's demands. The fashionable boot was now a functional necessity. For WWII they were once again called upon to supply vast quantities of wellingtons and thigh boots. 80% of production was for war materials - from ground sheets to life belts and gas masks. After WWII boot making had to move to a larger factory in Heathhall Dumfries, where the company has been based since, to deal with the rise in demand. Hunter's most famous welly, the original Green wellington, was made over 50 years ago in the winter of 1955. It was the first orthopedic boot that we made and was launched alongside the Royal Hunter - another boot that remains in...