Description:Born in 1858, Frederick Riley started work aged 13 as an apprentice in the clicking department of Amies & Taylor in Stafford. he began business on his own account in 1881 at a two-storey workshop on Gaol Square.
Sales increased and the business grew, and his company concentrated on making high quality women’s shoes under the ‘Gainsborough’ brand. As with many other manufacturers in the late 19th century, shoes at this time were largely made either by rivetting on the sole with brass rivets, or pegging them on with wooden pegs. Hand sewn shoes were still made outside the factories. In 1885 a larger factory was acquired in Mount Street.
The company continued to grow rapidly, and in 1892 moved to the factory on St. Patrick’s Place which had been built by another shoe manufacturer, James Day, and was then renamed ‘The Gainsborough Works’. Powered machines, including a Blake sole stitcher and a Boston tacker, were first introduced in 1896.
From 1909 the company was known as Frederick Riley Ltd., and before it closed in 1942, Frederick Riley & Sons. 129 people were employed in 1938. Frederick Riley died at his home, Cheslyn House on Rowley Avenue, aged 77 on 7 June 1935 and his sons Harold and Frederick Jr carried on the business.
The Gainsborough Works still stand, and between around 1962 and 2004 were occupied by Stafford Tool & Die (later Stafford Tool & Machine Co.).