Our tour bus wound down and down off the heights of the North York Moors as we edged our way towards Whitby on Yorkshire’s east coast. There are no shoulders on these roads and no second chances. If you want to be home for dinner, you had best pay attention. As we neared Whitby, we passed through the little village of Great Ayton. It was here in the early 1700s that Captain James Cook (1728-1779) spent the latter years of his childhood.

History of Tanning

The word ‘tanning’ today conjures up images of lying on a tropical white sand beach or less appealing to me, in a proprietor’s well-lit coffin-like box in the midst of a Canadian winter. However, in the 1800s and for a few years before that, tanning meant something entirely different. Tanning was and still is the process by which animal hides are protected from decay and rendered supple for various uses. We call the result of tanning, leather.

Between two million and 100,000 years ago hominids became systematic and successful hunters. As well as hunting tools, they developed tools for fleshing hides. During Ice Ages, they utilized hides for shelters, likely building fires within. Experts surmise that smoke from the fires, over time, tanned the hides, making them reusable over a lengthy period and resulting in the intentional use of smoke-tanning to provide a crude form of leather. Opening day at the Stockton & Darlington Railway, Yorkshire One hundred thousand years ago during the last Great Ice Age, Neanderthal man inhabited Europe. They used advanced hunting and hide processing methods which allowed them to survive and thrive, even in northern tundra. That suggests that they had perfected the making of warm clothing and footwear, that is, that they had knowledge of tanning and possessed skills in making leather products. The weakened small toe bones of 40,000 year old human fossils found in a Missouri cave suggest that sandals were being worn then. Coloured leather, sandals, bags, cushions and leather clothing, dated between 5000 BCE and 2000 BCE have been found in Nubian tombs.

William Richardson (1660-1740)

I could go on but here it is in a nutshell: tanning and leather have been around for a very long time. And most of us will agree that despite the advent of synthetics, there is still nothing like a finely made leather purse or shoe. Up until the late 1800s, leather was widely used for footwear, clothing, harnesses, carriage suspensions, book binding, vellum, fastenings and in large quantities for fitting out sailing ships and factories. There was simply nothing to replace the superior qualities of leather. It is strong, flexible, hard-wearing and waterproof. When Cook’s family arrived in Great Ayton, the Richardsons had been farming the area for one hundred years. They were well landed and well off. Young James Cook left Great Ayton for the history books, but the Richardsons remained. In the late 1600s, William Richardson (1660-1740) made a fateful decision. He decided to supplement his farming income by tanning leather. The new endeavour went so well that it was not long before tanning replaced farming altogether and all three of William’s sons had become tanners. The Richardson Tanneries For the next 300 years, the Richardson name became synonymous with tanning. Generations of sons grew the tanning business at several Yorkshire locations, the largest and most successful of which was at Newcastle-On-Tyne, the famous Edward & James Richardson (est. 1863). By 1913 their factory was enormous. Over the ensuing decades, E&J Richardson produced not only a wide range of tanned leather but almost every conceivable leather product as well. How It’s Done For the curious, here’s how tanning was traditionally done (trap yourself a rat in the backyard and follow along).

The Tanning Process

There were nine stages which could take up to a year to complete: 1. Plug your nose with wads of cotton soaked in Vicks Vapo-Rub (my idea) 2. Preserve the skin with salt 3. Wash the skin to remove the salt 4. Treat the hide with urine or lime 5. Scrape off the flesh, fat and hairs with the hide over a beam 6. Treat the hide with dog or pigeon faeces or animal brains 7. Soak the hide in progressively stronger solutions of tannic acid to prevent decomposition 8. Dry, then treat with wax or oil 9. Find another way to make a living Great Ayton was the perfect place to build tanneries because it had an over-abundance of dog faeces, pigeon droppings, urine and lime — all the essentials for tanning. Tourism, for some reason, never thrived in Great Ayton.

Life Goes On

In the 1970s, Edward and James Richardson could no longer compete profitably in the global marketplace and closed their doors. The Richardsons moved on to other things. Today, Hugh and Tom Richardson of Northumberland, have a thriving ice cream business. From the hides of dead cows to the cream of live cows, life goes on.

E&J Richardson Factory, Newcastle-On-Tyne