Ancestors At Work
Caroline Roberts explores the lives of our forebears who worked in Sheffield’s famous cutlery industry
Caroline Roberts explores the lives of our forebears who worked in Sheffield’s famous cutlery industry
The word ‘cutler’ comes from the Old French coutelier, which in turn derives from coutel, the word for knife. Crude forms of steel have been fashioned into blades for thousands of years, and by medieval times large centres of the industry had grown up in London and Sheffield. Before too long, however, the capital was outstripped by the northern city, which became Britain’s primary centre of production by the middle of the 18th century. And a century later, the census of 1841 showed that 60 per cent of Britain’s cutlers were based in the area.
Sheffield had long enjoyed a reputation for producing high-quality knives, and these even get a mention in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. In The Reeve’s Tale, a miller carries “a Sheffeld (sic) thwitel”, or small knife, tucked into his hose. The rise of the industry in the city, and particularly in the historical county of Hallamshire, was probably driven by the abundance of resources, such as iron and coal, in the area as well as easy access to water power – the city lies at the confluence of several fast-flowing rivers.
Developments in metallurgy originating in Sheffield also played a part. In 1740, the inventor Benjamin Huntsman introduced a process for producing crucible steel, also known as cast steel. It involved heating the raw materials to
very high temperatures then skimming the impurities off the molten metal. It also meant that the carbon, a major constituent of steel, was more evenly distributed throughout the metal, making it harder and stronger.
From 1624, cutlery in Sheffield was presided over by the trade guild the Company of Cutlers in Hallamshire, which controlled apprenticeships, registered the marks or surnames that cutlers stamped on their products, and regulated quality. The trade was
‘Towards the end of the 18th century, workers became more and more specialised’
carried out by skilled craftsmen known as ‘little mesters’, who mainly worked from their own homes or from small workshops, often with an apprentice and a ‘journeyman’, or employee. Others rented workspace in factories where they took on independent work as well as making products for the factory owner. It was a system that continued in one form or other until as late as the 1950s.
The journey from raw material to finished product required many different skills and processes and, towards the end of the
18th century, workers in the industry became more and more specialised, with the main roles being forger, grinder and cutler, often referred to as a ‘hafter’.
A forger would heat a steel rod in a hearth and hammer it into a rough blade shape, reheating it to create the handle joint and other refinements before hardening it in water and oil. He knew how to gauge the temperature of the metal from its colour, and wielded the hammer with great skill. Sheffield had hundreds of small forges, sometimes with several on one street, and they all contributed to the smog that often lay over the city.
The Daily Grind
In the next stage of the process, a grinder would hone the blade by holding it against a spinning sandstone wheel. Wheels of varying levels of coarseness were fixed above water-filled troughs and grinders would sit at their wheel astride a wooden seat, or ‘horsing’. It was a dirty and dangerous job. Workshops would be full of dust, sparks and noise, and grinders would be covered from head to foot in ‘wheelswarf’, a sludge of sandstone dust and water that was the cause of ‘grinder’s asthma’ and other lung diseases. By the mid-1800s, the banks of the rivers around Sheffield were dotted with grinding workshops powered by water wheels. However, towards the end of the century the increasing use of steam power meant that the process began to move to factories in the city centre, and sandstone started to be replaced by emery, a granular rock that was cleaner and safer. Finally, a hafter would assemble the knife and attach the handle. Some knives were of very complex construction, and required great skill. A penknife might have multiple blades and tools, including a screwdriver, dog comb, pruning blade, button hook, and even a blade designed for castrating animals. Spring knives needed to be carefully balanced so that the blades snapped shut and moved smoothly against each other. And handles, which could be made of wood, bone, horn, brass, ivory or tortoiseshell, were sometimes elaborately carved and decorated.
Use of the old Sheffield dialect persisted longer in the cutlery trade than elsewhere. Into the 20th century, cutlers could be
heard to ask each other, “Hast thou addled owt?” – ie “Have you earned anything?”. A hearthstone was referred to as an ‘arsten’, a grinding trough was a ‘trow’, and the process of clearing the wheelswarf out at the end of the week was called ‘feying out’.
The Arrival Of Machinery
Sheaf Works, Sheffield’s first large cutlery factory, opened in 1823, and by 1850 there were four other large firms employing hundreds of workers. But mechanisation came slowly to the Sheffield cutlery industry. Little mesters saw themselves as artisans, and doubted that machines would be capable of producing the high-quality items for which the city was famed. However, improvements in machinery meant that by the dawn of the 20th century the industry had begun to accept increased mechanisation, particularly when it came to products of medium quality and price.
In 1913, the process was hastened by the invention of stainless steel. While Sheffield metallurgist Harry Brearley was experimenting with ways to stop corrosion in gun barrels, he found that the addition of chromium made the steel resistant to rust.
This new type of steel was worked with machinery, rather than with the traditional forging and grinding techniques that had been used in the past, and skilled jobs began to be lost.
Nevertheless, the Sheffield craftsmen adapted their working practices, and the tradition of small-scale knife-making survives today. As well as the factories, you can still find a handful of modern-day little mesters at work in the city. And, thanks to the skill of our cutler forebears, the city will forever be associated with the finest knives.