That nasty, slushy, wet, cold time of year is a comin’ and I got my old Wellies ready to strut. Here’s the Wellies story, just in case you didn’t know how rad they really were… The Hunter Story A symbol of British country life In 1856 Mr Henry Lee Norris, an American entrepreneur, landed on Scottish soil in search of a home for his boot making company. Having acquired a block of buildings in Edinburgh, known as the Castle Silk Mills, the North British Rubber Company (which much later became known as Hunter Boot Ltd) was registered as a limited liability company in September 1856. In the beginning there were only four people working for the company, by 1875 the team had grown to 600 members of staff. Production of Wellington boots were dramatically boosted with the advent of World War I when the company was asked by the War Office to construct a sturdy boot suitable for the conditions in flooded trenches. The mills ran day and night to produce immense quantities of these trench boots. In total, 1,185,036 pairs were made to cope with the Army’s demands. The fashionable boot was now a functional necessity. For WWII they…