Almost two centuries in the service of Igualada’s tanning transport

The history of the Carters of Cal Blaiet goes back to an ancestor of the Robert family, known as Blai Robert, a name that over time became Blaiet and gave rise to the house of Cal Blaiet.

The family’s link with the carter’s trade already appears documented in the local trades census of the city of Igualada of 1854, in which Pau Robert is recorded as a local carter. This places Cal Blaiet’s history in this trade over a period of approximately 175 to 200 years, always closely linked to the industrial activity of the city.

Its history has been closely bound up with the development of the leather industry and the growth of the tanneries around the Rec of Igualada. For generations, the carters were an indispensable part of the transport of materials, barks, products and goods related to the leather tanning process.

One example of this continuity is the service provided over four generations, for close to 100 years, to one and the same tanning company: Curtits Badia. This link exemplifies the relationship of trust, closeness and specialisation that Cal Blaiet maintained with the tanning sector of Igualada.

In the 1930s, in the time of Magí Robert, the Cal Blaiet stable had seven horses and their corresponding work carts. Among these were the barrel cart, the work carts, the awning cart —used on rainy days— and the tipping cart, among other vehicles adapted to the transport needs of the time.

At the beginning of the 1950s, Macià Robert took charge of the business after returning from military service, at just 22 years of age. In those years, and until the early 1960s, the movement of bark for the vegetable tanning of leather was very intense. In a single morning, several carts, both their own and hired, had to be mobilised to empty the pits of old bark and put in the new bark at tanneries such as Fontanellas y Martí or Farrés y Cia. This whole process was done by hand, shovelful by shovelful and with great physical effort.

Over time, bark was replaced by tannin extracts, such as quebracho or mimosa, and transport also began a gradual transformation: from animal traction to the engine. Cal Blaiet acquired various vehicles, such as a DEUTZ tractor, a UNIC lorry, a DKW 800 S and an AVIA 2500 lorry.

Among all these vehicles, one stands out in particular: a DERBI Motocarro, Igualada model, manufactured by the Derbi company of Mollet del Vallès. Only three units were produced, all of them intended for the tanning transport of Igualada at the time. This vehicle had a load capacity of one tonne and the particular feature that the cab could turn 360 degrees, an ideal characteristic for manoeuvring inside the tanneries of the 1960s.

The year 1975 was the last in which Cal Blaiet had a working horse, thus closing a historic chapter marked by animal traction and definitively opening the way to motorised transport.

Today, the stable and stalls of Cal Blaiet are preserved intact, as if time had stood still there. It is a unique stable in a county capital and a living testimony to a trade, a family and a way of working that form part of the industrial memory of Igualada and of the heritage linked to the leather sector.

At Leather Cluster Barcelona, highlighting stories such as that of Cal Blaiet also makes it possible to recognise all those trades and services that, for generations, have made the development of the tanning industry possible and have helped to build the identity of the leather sector in the area.

Leather Cluster Barcelona is an environment of competitive cooperation for promoting cross-cutting and transformative strategic projects with the aim of driving forward the ecosystem of the Catalan leather sector within the framework of Shared Value policies. The cluster is an accredited body within the Catalonia Clusters programme and has the support of Acció.