Arthur Wellesley, the first Duke of Wellington, instructed his shoemaker, Hoby of St. James' Street, London, to modify the Hessian 18th century boot. This new boot was made of calfskin leather and must have been a transformation on previous Hessian boot. It would have been hardwearing, comfortable, lighter and probably treated with wax to help make it waterproof. The Duke of Wellington soon realised the advantage of better footwear for his troops and then the ball was rolling. The Wellington boot then played a pivotal role in history; the Battle of Waterloo, the American War of Independence and latterly in both World Wars. Such was the significance of his design they were worn at the Duke's funeral cortege, and the name Wellington boot was born.

In 1852 Hiram Hutchinson met Charles Goodyear, who had invented a vulcanisation process for rubber. Hutchinson bought the patent and set up a company in France which would then serve the country's large rural population. The brand honoured his home country "A L'Aigle - Homage to the Eagle".

In 1856 entrepreneur Henry Lee Norris also left America with four experienced rubber boot workers and went to Scotland and found a block of buildings in Edinburgh, known as the Castle Silk Mills. There, they registered the British Rubber Company. Rubber boots were only produced in limited numbers at the start, with other products taking more of the sales. This quickly changed with the outbreak of the First World War because of the appalling conditions in the trenches. Almost two million Wellington boots were sold to the army. In the Second Great War the armed forces again used vast quantities of rubber Wellington boots along with waders, particularly in Holland.

Today welly boots are used in every walk of life from Trenches to Towns and from Farms to Festivals. The Welly Boot has well and truely "got a grip" on modern society.