Sheaf Works, Sheffield, from Illustrated Guide to Sheffield, 1879
What now for Sheffield’s Little Mesters?
Mechanisation and decline
"High Quality Cutlery" Thomas Ellin and Co Ltd, Cutlery Manufacturer, Sylvester Works, Sheffield 1910
The tremendous variety of tools and cutlery made it very difficult to introduce mechanisation into the cutlery and tool industries in Sheffield. The benefits of mechanisation were cost-related. It was cheaper to make blades with a machine than by hand. Basic knives could be mass-produced in a short period of time and with only a few workers to pay. Specialist high quality knives still had to be made by hand as machine mechanisation was not sufficiently developed to produce such specialist knives. A few Sheffield firms invested in new machinery with success, but many believed that the quality of a machine-made product was too low in comparison to those made by hand. Most self-employed workers did not have the capital to invest in machinery and continued to trust in their craftsmanship to sell their products.
Those who did not mechanise had trouble staying in business and were eventually pushed out of the market. Competition first came from Germany and America in the late 1800s. Both these countries had quickly taken up machine production. In the 1960s, imports from Far Eastern countries became popular in Britain. These countries also used machines and their workers were paid much lower wages. Many famous Sheffield cutlery firms could not compete and closed in the 1970s and 1980s. The tool trade was not hit as badly but also went into decline.
Sadly over the last 60 years, mechanisation has eventually replaced many of the traditional hand skills of Sheffield’s Little Mesters. The number of these craftsmen has dwindled from hundreds to only a handful today. Those little Mesters that were able to continue in business did so - their skills were very much needed to produce small batches of special products.
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