ABSTRACT
Shoes were highly politicised objects in Georgian Britain. Men’s footwear was distinct from women’s, being much heavier in construction and more suitable for activities in the public sphere, at a time when historians argue that gender roles were diverging. Moreover, the different types of footwear worn by men conveyed distinctive meanings regarding masculinity, class and national identity. The gentleman’s boot par excellence was the wellington: these had obvious patriotic connotations, having been developed by the victor of Waterloo, and their flexibility lent themselves to the businesslike attire of the late-Georgian public man, their close fit enhancing his masculine silhouette. By contrast, the footwear of working people was wide, flat-footed, hard-wearing and designed to be walked in. The image of the ‘wooden shoe’ came to symbolise poverty and oppression, and was frequently deployed to highlight the supposed superiority of Britons to other nationalities. This chapter therefore considers both representations of shoes and surviving objects from museum collections to think about their symbolic and material significance within the political world. It argues that what people wear on their feet can help us to understand the ways in which political cultures have historically been embodied.
