Improvements in or relating to Socks or Removable Inner Soles for Boots, Shoes, and Slippers.
Year: 1896

page_text: Date of Application, 15th Dec., 1896-4ccepted, 16th Jan., 1897
COMPLETE SPECIFICATION.
Improvements in or relating to Socks or Removable Inner Soles for
Boots, Shoes, and Slippers.
We, THE WELLS CO. LIMITED of Yeoman Lane, Leicester, Leather Merchants
and JAMES HEWITT, Managing Director of the said company of the same address
do hereby declare the nature of this invention and in what manner the same
is to be performed to be particularly described and ascertained in and by the
following statement :-
This invention relating to socks or removable inner soles for boots, shoes, and
slippers, is designed with the object of producing a sock of increased utility and
adaptability.
The sock to be hereinafter described is manufactured with two separate and
independent wearing surfaces, that is surfaces to be located next to the foot of the
individual, and in addition, it has asbestos combined therewith so that it is
specifically adapted for use both in summer and winter with equally beneficial
results, variable more or less according to the side which is placed next to the
foot.
The sock comprised in the present invention consists in the novel combination of
materials, as hereinafter more fully described, by which the duality of wearing
surfaces is obtained and its adaptability for wear during either cold or warm
weather is secured.
A sock made in accordance with this invention comprises as its constituents &
warm or fleecy material such as swansdown, a smooth and conler material such as
leather and a third element viz: asbestos, which by preference is interposed or
sandwiched between the two before mentioned materials, the whole being connected
together into an apparent single thickness or layer forming the improved sock or
removable inner sole the subject of the present invention.
In carrying the invention into practice we take first a piece of swansdown or
like fleecy or soft warm material in one or more thicknesses and cut out of it either
by hand or by suitably shaped knives placed upon the material and under a cutting
press, blanks of the required shape and size to fit the interior of a boot or shoe.
A similar process may also be adopted with regard to both the leather and the
asbestos.
As the sock when completed consists of a threefold layer of materials as herein
anentioned it is obvious that thin materials are used and the leather which may be
of various colours may be of the class known as persians, basils, skivers, roans or
the like and the asbestos may be of the thinnest possible sheets compatible with
the capacity to become attached to the two exterior layers.
These three materials cut of the same size and shape are placed together, the
asbestos forming the central layer, and the whole is then united into one sock,
either by one or more rows of stitches passing round its marginal edge, or by
preference, the edge is bound or overlaid by braid, or a strip of thin leather or
equivalent material sewn all round the sock.
It will be understood that the fleecy side of the sock will be worn next to the
foot in winter and the smooth leather face in summer, and the asbestos on account
of its heat resisting and non-conducting qualities renders the sock cool in wear
during warm weather and the reverse in cold seasons.

page_text: Having now particularly described and ascertained the nature of our said
invention and in what manner the same is to be performed we declare that what
we claim is :-
1. A sock or removable inner sole for boots, shoes and slippers comprising as
its constituents, leather, asbestos and a warm or fleecy material substantially as
described.
2. A sock or removable inner sole for boots shoes and slippers consisting of
superposed layers of leather, asbestos and swansdown or like warm material
combined and connected together substantially in the manner described.
3. The improved sock or removable inner sole for boots, shoes and slippers
consisting of the three materials combined and arranged substantially as
described.
Dated this 14th day of December 1896