3-102-264 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Fourteen thousand tins an hour! A machine that fills tins of "shoeshine", 1909. 'The Heel of Achilles & the Heel of the Modern...the Wood-Milne revolving rubber heel was invented some thirteen years ago. Like most of the useful, great inventions of the world, Mr. Wood's was a simple one. It occurred to him that instead of tough leather, or of tough leather tipped with clumsy iron, some new material, at once springy and durable, might be found as a comfortable cushion between the foot and the ground. That substitute was found in indiarubber, one of the most lasting and elastic of fabrics... The firm's output of rubber heels varies from 750,000 to 1,000,000 per week, while recently it has added a new department for the manufacture of Wood-Milne boot-polishes'. Factory in Preston. From "Illustrated London News", 1909.