One pair in nine

At the height of the Second World War, one in nine pairs worn by the British Forces carried the John White label. That is the short version. The longer one is better.

John White was thirty-five when he put his name above the door in 1919, with twenty-three years apprenticed in the trade behind him. Northamptonshire was already the cradle of British shoemaking. He began with a small workshop and one uncompromising standard.

By 1930 the trade was drifting towards cheaper production and shorter lives. He answered it with a line called Impregnable, and took a front page of the Daily Mail to say plainly what it stood for. One and a quarter million pairs sold before the year was out.

Ten years later the country was at war. One in nine pairs worn by the British Forces carried the label. He went further than supplying them: he personally funded a Spitfire, and christened it Impregnable, after the shoe that had made his name.

He stepped back in 1962, after four decades. The years that followed were hard on British shoemaking, and the name passed through mergers and holding companies while the domestic factories closed around it. In 2000 David Corben bought the name back and set about reviving it.

A century on, every pair is designed in Northamptonshire and crafted by trusted partner makers, to the standard he set: leathers chosen for grain and patina, and a considered finish on every last.

The story continues with you.