The City of Collingwood has been famous as the capital of the Australia’s boot and shoe manufacturing from the late 19th until well into the 20th century and was the location of many dozens of footwear factories and associated industries. Ian Harold’s claim to fame includes his perseverance – and humour – in keeping the last of Collingwood’s old style boot factories in production while all the others closed around him. The Harold Boot Factory, started by Ian’s grandfather Frederick, eventually left 205 Gipps St Abbotsford to move to Fairfield in 2008. Ian’s lineage is also extraordinary in that Harold Boot Company claim a family history of boot making dating back to the 1400s in Leicestershire, England where Ian Harold's ancestors were bespoke boot makers.

According to the Harold Boot Company website, by the beginning of the 1700s the family in England employed over 40 hand shoemakers making the quality boots and shoes of the time. At the start of the industrial revolution the family started a factory which was very modern for its time. In 1878 John Harold took over the running of the factory from his father Alexander. In 1912 John’s son Frederick was sent out to Australia to start a new factory, making traditional footwear to send back to England. In time the Australian company thrived both with exports to England and local sales.

With the onset of the First World War the Australian operation went into war production mode, manufacturing footwear for the Australian military. In 1921 Frederick built a new factory in Gipps Street. It proudly maintained production right through the 1930s Depression. The Harold Boot Company again went onto a war footing during the Second World War, producing combat boots for the army. Ian’s father, Alec, joined the company in 1930 and Ian started work there in 1955, taking over as Managing Director from his father in the 1970s. His grandfather Frederick had died in 1953 and his father in 1986.

And after WW2, when labour was scarce, the young Ian used to go down to the wharves with his father, and ‘grab people who had just got off the ships’ to offer them work. Ian enjoyed telling stories of the various characters who worked at the factory and remained loyal over the years.

At its peak, in the 1950s and '60s, the factory was turning out 1000 pairs of boots a day and employing over 100 people.  The removal of tariffs hit the boot industry hard in the 1970s and 1980s. Ian recalled ‘In the last 25 years that's come down to 40 or 50 pairs a day. . .with half a dozen people working on the floor’.

The business was sold to Ken and Carol Watkin in 1989 but Ian Harold continued in charge of production, running the factory. In 2008 Ian sold the Abbotsford factory building and retired after 54 years in the boot trade. (The Age 17 June 2008). Some of the old machinery was moved to Fairfield where the Harold Boot Company continued, while some was sold off. 

The boot factory and Ian feature in the short film Collingwood: a history made in the 1980s which features on the Collingwood Historical Society Youtube site.

The website www.haroldboot.com.au, as well as outlining the long family history of boot making in England and Australia, displays the current range of high quality boots. From 2013 the boots have been manufactured in Vietnam, still using some of the original machinery from Gipps Street, and now there is an online store that sells Harold boots under the brand name Ian Harold the Bootman.

Ian Harold died in 2020 and was remembered as the last of his line of bootmakers, but also as a generous friend who enjoyed life, described by one friend as ‘a man who bathed others with his warmth and infectious laugh. Storyteller supreme who touched the lives of so many’.

Ian displays his boots

https://www.haroldbootstore.com.au/history

https://www.smh.com.au/national/after-52-years-and-a-500year-family-legacy-shoemaker-hangs-up-his-boots-20080927-4pdr.html

https://tributes.theage.com.au/obituaries/130356/ian-alexander-harold/

Ian Harold and the Harold Boot Company, Jessica Leski, c 2008 (DVD) Yarra Libraries, Local History Collection Collingwood. Ca. 60 minutes. Includes ‘How to make a pair of Harold boots’

Information supplied by family