15 September 2020

Are you descended from Sheffield's famous knife makers?

 

Photo from the Ken Hawley Collection Trust
A search is underway to find the descendants of the many families behind the firms that made knives in the steel city of Sheffield.

The project hopes to find 5,000 people from the city whose family names are on the cutlery database.

via a BBC post

2 comments:

  1. While I was brought up knowing all about the wonderful Sheffield knives, and even remember seeing some like the one pictured in my family's cutlery drawers, my father who was brought up in Sheffield had connections to furniture making rather than cutlery. Pity!

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  2. While I'm not sure about the "famous knife makers" I know I am descended from Charles White of Ecclesall Bierlow, Sheffield, an “etcher employing one boy” 1861; his sons Arthur and Charles who were “etcher and engravers” in 1871. Son Charles continued to be recorded as an etcher and engraver throughout his life.
    Son Arthur, my great-grandfather, was a “cutlery etcher” in 1881 and developed severe arthritis that caused a malformation of his hands resulting in the family’s moving to Birmingham in 1884 where he became a supervisor in a measuring tape factory.
    I have a pewter teapot illustrating his work that came to me through my mother and grandmother - his daughter Caroline. I have no specific information regarding his places of employment in Sheffield. It would be wonderful to learn more specifics about his work in the craft.

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