This page is dedicated to the history of cutlery in Sheffield. Long before pocket knives were made in the USA, they were made and refined in England by some amazing craftsmen - all centered in the city of Sheffield. I am not an expert on Sheffield cutlery history, in fact, I've never been to Sheffield. However, to truly understand American pocket cutlery history, one must understand its roots.
Resources in the Public Domain
History of the Company of Cutlers in Hallamshire Vol. 1 - 1905
History of the Company of Cutlers in Hallamshire Vol. 2 - 1906
Mechanic Exercises or the The Doctrine of Handy-Works - 1703
On the prevention and treatment of the Sheffield grinders' disease - 1857
Sheffield: Past and Present - 1873
The Sheffield Dialect - 2nd Ed. (1st published in1839)
The Cutlery Trades - An Historical Essay in the Economis of Small-Scale Production - 1913
Coward, Henry. Reminiscences of Henry Coward. London: J. Curwen & sons Ltd, 1919
Books:
(Note: I've provided a list of books I've read here. Some may be out of print or difficult to find, but it doesn't make them less interesting!)
Tweedale, Geoffrey. Sheffield Steel and America: A Century of Commercial and Technological Interdependence 1830-1930. 1st ed., Cambridge University Press, 2009.
Tweedale, Geoffrey. The Sheffield Knife Book: A History & Collectors Guide. The Hallamshire Press, 1996.
Tweedale, Geoffrey. Stan Shaw, Master Cutler: The Story of a Sheffield Craftsman. Hallamshire Press, 1993.
Tweedale, Geoffrey. Tweedale’s Directory of Sheffield Cutlery Manufacturers 1740-2013, Revised and Expanded 2nd Edition. 2nd ed., Knife World, 2021.
Turner, C. Sheffield Heritage: Anthology of Photographs and Words of the Cutlery Craftsmen. University of Sheffield & Sheffield Trades Historical Society, 1978.
Housley, Herbert. Back to the Grindstone. The Hallamshire Press, 1998.
Binfield, Clyde, and David Hey. Mesters to Masters: A History of the Company of Cutlers in Hallamshire. 1st ed., Oxford University Press, 1997.
Jenkins, Clare, and Stephen McClarence. On the Knife Edge: The inside Story of the Sheffield Cutlery Industry. SCL Publishing, 1989.
Drewry, Mick. Intimidation: The History, The Times And The People Of The Sheffield Outrages. Austin Macauley Publishing, 2017.
Bill Adams (Editor). Sheffield Exhibition Knives. Old World Publishing, Ltd, 1999.
From the blog: