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MAJOR ISAAC'S BOOT CAMP

Major Samuel Isaac, originally of Chatham, was the first well known Jewish figure in Northampton in modern times and was a founder of the modern boot and shoe industry. A military contractor, he supplied boots to the British Army until 1858, when he was dismissed as the result of an unproven allegation of misappropriation of public funds at the important Weedon Bec Military Depot in Northamptonshire.

Subsequently, he did lucrative business supplying the Confederates during the American Civil War, and was one of the foremost blockade busters of the Civil War. In the first eight months of the war he sold $1million dollars of goods to the Confederates, but incurred heavy losses with their eventual defeat.

Isaac had his own shoe factory at Inkerman Terrace from 1857 and then at Campbell Square, at the Upper Mounts from 1859. The factory was one of the first two modern shoe factories in England. This important role of the Jewish community in helping establish the modern boot and shoe industry has only been noted in recent years as a result of the work of the historian Michael Jolles.

What is remarkable is that the key technology for the modern shoe factory - the adapted Singer's sewing machine for leather - was only devised in 1856. Isaac was clearly exceptionally quick to adopt it in England. However, resistance to mechanisation by the shoe workers was to lead to Isaac leasing the factory out.

Isaac also raised a patriotic rifle brigade with 80 members at the company in 1860 and he was designated 'Captain Commandant' - he only became 'Major' later on. The brigade assembled several times a week after work for drill and practice.

Samuel Isaac also stood as a would-be MP for Northampton. He stood as a radical liberal, but he failed as his campaign did not find favour with the press and some prospective electors objected that his support for the Confederates was tacit support for slavery in the southern states.

He is mostly remembered for donating a large iron fountain - possibly as an elction bribe - to Northampton, commemorating the marriage of Prince Albert to Princess Alexandra of Denmark. Set up in the Market Square, it was a landmark until it was taken down in 1962, and broken up for scrap, though the steps and plinth remained for some years after.

It is ironic that the Fascist Mosley used to preach his rhetoric from the steps of this fountain in the 1930s and indeed the Black Shirts had an office in the Mayorhold in the 1930s.

In later life Isaac was responsible for building the Mersey Railway tunnel completed in 1886 - a major engineering triumph which also enabled his rehabilitation as a public figure.