Did you know, we have recently introduced a selection of knives into our catalogue. But we haven’t done this out of the blue. We made scissors from day 1 of William Whiteley & Sons being born, but knives came onto the scene at the turn of the century; 1800s and 1900s.

As a nod to our heritage and to our roots as a Sheffield company, we decided to re-introduce knives into our range. Starting with the three knives pictured below.

 

Initially there were table knives in two sizes with bone handles, and then about 20 years later, a selection of penknives. I remember the table knives as they were in everyday use when I was a child for years.

 

The discovery, after looking through the old documents, catalogues and press articles of an article written by my Grandfather in 1922 for ‘The Business World’ telling other businesses how great we were (and of course, still are!) and also that we were making pen knives as an addition to our scissor range. This was a very welcome surprise to me and it seemed apt for us to reintroduce them into our offering. 

 

We also made cut-throat razors for a period up until 1950. We had a large order for 3000 of these which were for a country in the Middle East so we despatched the order via sea. As the ship approached the harbour, a very powerful storm blew up and sank the ship, along with the razors. None of the cargo was salvageable and there was no insurance on its cargo, so it was a total dead loss! I have no knowledge of what happened to the crew.  Not so long after this, cut-throat razors went out of fashion, so we didn’t make any more after that. We concentrated on what we were and still are best at: making scissors!