Mechanization of shoe manufacture was introduced late 18thC/early19thC. Marc Brunel was involved. Napoleonic War increased demand for footwear. When war ended, demand dropped, labour was cheap, and factory production was no longer economically viable. Shoemaking reverted to a cottage or small workshop industry as before the war. Workshops in large towns employed 10-20 workers. Majority were men, with a few women to do stitching. A pair of shoes, hand-made to order, for better-off customers, could take a day to make. Ready-made shoes could be bought "off the shelf". The shoemakers union was one of the most militant at this time and there was frequent conflict between workers and workshop owners.
A further attempt to mechanize the industry from mid-19thC onwards was successful. This was aided by invention of the sewing machine and the Crimean War, which again increased demand for boots. Mechanization was complete by 1890.
For an illustrated history of shoemaking 18th-19thC see
https://janeaustensworld.wordpress.com/2010/10/16/fashionable-shoes-of-the-18th-and-19th-century-and-how-they-were-madeMy research has focussed on 19thC shoemakers in Preston, Lancashire. There was a shop/workshop on one of the main shopping streets. Many occupants of an alley off that street were shoemakers, likewise another alley nearby. Wives and grown-up daughters of those shoemakers were generally boot-binders (sometimes wrongly transcribed as bookbinders on census). As well as native-born Lancastrians there were Scots, a few from Cumberland and Westmorland and Staffordshire, and from mid-century, a high proportion of Irish.
