13 & 14 Burleigh Street, Cambridge

History of 13 & 14 Burleigh Street

1913

Benjamin Rayment, straw hat maker

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Benjamin Rayment: shoemaking apprenticeship — 30 January 1936

Benjamin Rayment was first apprenticed to the shoemaking trade at a shop in Trumpington Street but decided to try his fortune elsewhere. He walked to Birmingham for work before entering the hat industry in Luton when the first hat-blocking machine was introduced from America. He returned to Cambridge and carried on business in Burleigh Street as a straw and felt hat maker for close on 70 years. When the straw hat industry was in its prime he used to supply ‘boaters’ to most of the University shops in the town. He had a wonderful memory with recollections of the Crimean War, the Chartist Riots and the great exhibition in Hyde Park and died in his 100th year.

Credit: Mike Petty Archive, Cambridge Trumpington Street Scrapbook, ref. 36 01 30.

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1939 –