Hello Cheri,
I can't help with your actual family search, but with regard to the bootmaking businesss I may be able to shed a light on the trade.
In the East end of London Bethnal Green and Hackney were noted for two main trades boot /shoe making and furniture making during the period that you mention, This was the case until quite recently. A lot of households actually made the boots or shoes at home and this may have been considered 'a business'
My own Gt. Grandfather was a bootmaker in Shoreditch as too was his wife and son. The wife and son were on the census as being employed whilst the head of the house was said to have his 'own account'
Hoping this may help,
Brenda (London)
From a website East London History that mentions Ash Grove
Bootmaking was at first concentrated south and south-east of London Fields: in 1880, of 43 wholesale boot manufacturers listed in north London, 38 were in Hackney, including all but one of the 8 businesses in Ash Grove and 6 of the 10 in Mentmore Terrace. (fn. 70) Poverty in the 1890s was attributed to the hangers-on of boot finishers, whose northward drift from Bethnal Green had made a second centre for their trade. (fn. 71) In 1938 London's footwear industry was centred on Hackney, (fn. 72) where long established firms, all with Jewish names, were to survive until the 1960s. Jacob Kempner, at no. 236 Mare Street and Paragon Road in 1898, was at nos. 31 and 33 Well Street by 1911, called Kempner & Brandon by 1920, at Victory works in Shore Road in 1934 and 1948, and later in Dalston Lane. (fn. 73) Reuben Lazarus, in Hackney Grove by 1911, had one of three boot factories between Richmond and Ellingfort roads in 1934 and was in Ken worthy Road in 1948. (fn. 74) Eleazer Phillips, who replaced a Barnardo's home and the Y.M.C.A. at nos. 273-5 Mare Street, claimed to be Hackney's oldest shoemakers in 1948.
