The Glover's Guild in existence in 1497
1683 Prominent Worcester Quaker glovers, Francis Fincher and Alexander Beardsley much persecuted - sold up and went to America with families and servants. They purchased land from William Penn (Pennsylvania) Fincher elected first Speaker but declined. One of the Fincher family named Philadelphia. It was said that Penn choose the name for them long before the town was born. The town's name meant City of Brotherly Love. There were still Finchers in the glove trade there up until the 1970s.
1772 In Worcester, two youths apprenticed in Sidbury, John Fownes and John Dent. Both started glove firms of World renown. Three sons of John Dent became prominent citizens. Two became Mayor. They lived in Angel Court, Sidbury.
1796 By this time Gloving had succeeded to the position of the Cloth trade in Worcester. 5,000 employed in the district.
1820 Worcester Directory 1820 named 102 separate glove manufacturers.
1824 All duty on foreign gloves removed. Within few years work at Worcester was brought to a standstill
1825 140 masters and 30,000 workers in Worcester glove trade. No glovers unemployed.
1826 The golden age came to an end in 1826 when the Government of the day lifted a ban on imported gloves.
1832 Out of every 1,000 glovers only 113 were in full employment, and 465 earned only 2s. 6d per week. Many Worcester glovers left for the U.S.A, settling in the gloving towns of Gloversville and Johnstown.
1853 John Allcroft joined Dents, and the firm Dent Allcroft & Co moved to Palace Yard.
The gloving once made the city a roaring boom town between the 1790s and 1820s, when it more than 150 manufacturers employing 20,00 people and producing 7,500.000 pairs a year came to an end. Such was the phenomenal growth in the industry that the population growth doubled in just 20 years as people came from all over the country to get jobs.