Toolmakers and Tools

• Beardshaw & Son

• Biggin & Sons

• Butcher, William & Samuel

• Drabble & Sanderson

• Groves, Richard & Sons

• Ibbotson Brothers & Co. - Globe Works

• Jackson, William & Co.

• Marples, William and Sons

• Mathieson, Alex

• Rabone, John & Sons

• Sorby, Robert & Sons

• Spear & Jackson, Inc.

• Taylor Brothers - Adelaide Works

• Tyzack, Joseph & Son

• Wostenholm, George  & Son, Ltd.

"In England the name 'Sheffield' has long been synonymous with fine-quality steel, no more so than in the early nineteenth century when the town, though seeming to possess few advantages for the manufacture of steel, virtually monopolized the industry in Europe.

In contrast, the United States before 1860 was still in the age of wood and iron, relying almost exclusively on England for supplies of cast steel.  No better example illustrates the Anglo-American relationship termed the Atlantic economy."

Geoffrey Tweedale,
Sheffield Steel and America:
A Century of Commercial and
Technological Interdependence,
1830–1930 (Cambridge, 1987).

Major Steelmakers

• Cammell & Co.

• Firth, Thos. & Sons

• Jessop, William & Sons

• Sanderson Brothers & Co.

Key Personalities in UK Toolmaking

• Joseph Moxon

• Henry Bessemer

• Charles Holtzapffel

Suggested Reading >>

• Replicating the Seaton Tool Chest by David Nelson

• Tools - a Genuine Expression of Folk Art by Jonathan Green-Plumb

• The Ken Hawley Experience by Derek Bateson

• Tweedale’s Day in Albuquerque… by Wiktor Kuc

• 1961 - Story of the Saw by P. d' A. Jones and E. N. Simons, 1961

• 1919 - Sheffield - The Story of English Towns by J. S. Fletcher

• 1919 - Sheffield - The Cutlers' Company by J. S. Fletcher

• 1884 - Great Industries of Great Britain, part 1

• 1884 - Great Industries of Great Britain, part 3

• 1876 - British Perspective - The Centennial International Exhibition of 1876

• 1865 - An English Operative in an American Factory, Scientific American, 1865