This enterprise began under Jacob Roberts (1726-1781) and Samuel Roberts (1732-1799), who were brothers descended from cutlers connected with Ecclesfield since the seventeenth century.  The family had links with Beldon, Hoyland & Company.  The Roberts’ started in Union Street in Sheffield (trade marks +PAPA and +ABBA).  They traded first as table knife manufacturers and merchants, with London and Continental connections, but by the 1760s had become involved in the Sheffield Plate trade.  They entered various partnerships in this period, with links to Thomas Law and John Winter and Sauer, Eyre & Co.

In 1784, Samuel Roberts’ son, also named Samuel (18 April 1763-1848), began a partnership with George Cadman (1760-1823).  The latter was related to the Cadmans of Spinkhill Manor (see Charles Cadman) and, according to Crosskey (2011)¹, was to become the works manager.  The elder Roberts built a works for his son in Eyre Street.  In 1786, Roberts, Cadman & Co registered a silver mark as plate workers from Norfolk Street.  Cadman died in 1823 and three years later a new partnership was formed, which registered a silver mark as S. Roberts, Cadman & Co, Eyre Street.  In 1834, the capital was £9,000.  By 1841, the firm had a London showroom at Duke Street, Adelphi.

Samuel Roberts, the younger, became a dominant figure in the Sheffield silver trade.  According to Bradbury (1912)², ‘by his early training, his commercial aptitude, and his cultured taste, [he] eventually eclipsed his less enterprising competitors.  Of all the manufacturers … he stands out as the ablest in Sheffield’.  He influenced design and quality, with his Bell mark found only on the best articles of Sheffield Plate.  He also lodged a string of patents for various innovations and was regarded by a contemporary as an ‘indefatigable genius’.  He described himself as a ‘Jack of all Trades … good at none.  But I understood them all’ (Roberts, 1849³; Roberts, 1862⁴).  Nevertheless, in the early 1840s the firm was slow to adopt the Elkington electro-plate process, which meant that products had to be sent to Birmingham to be plated.

Roberts was a political and social pamphleteer, who became known as the ‘Paupers’ Advocate’, because he opposed the poor law system.  He campaigned against the use of climbing boys; and opposed capital punishment and slavery.  He also published an essay and books on Gypsies (Holmes, 1976)⁵.  Roberts lived at Park Grange, Sheffield Park.  He died there on 24 July 1848, aged 85, and was buried at Anston.  His son, Samuel (13 April 1800-1887), was a clerk and treasurer in the business, with William Sissons as manager and Evan Smith as the London partner.  In 1848, the business became Smith, Sissons & Co (see W. & G. Sissons), when Samuel Roberts retired.  He lived at Queen’s Tower; a turreted structure that had been built for him by his father in homage to Mary Queen of Scots.  Samuel died on 29 November 1887, aged 87, leaving £201,247.  He was accorded a lengthy obituary in The Sheffield Independent, 30 November 1887.  He was buried in the family vault at Anston churchyard.

^1. Crosskey, Gordon, Old Sheffield Plate: A History of the 18th Century Plated Trade (Sheffield, 2011)

^2. Bradbury, F., History of Old Sheffield Plate (London, 1912)

^3. Roberts, Samuel, Autobiography and Select Remains of the Late Samuel Roberts (London, 1849)

^4. Roberts, Samuel, Some Memorials of the Family of Roberts of Queen’s Tower, Sheffield, as Exemplified by Kindred, Affinity, and Marriage (Sheffield, 1862)

^5. Holmes, Colin, ‘Samuel Roberts and the Gypsies’, in S. Pollard and C. Holmes (eds.), Essays in the Economic and Social History of South Yorkshire (Sheffield, 1976)