This company also traded as Sheffield Goods Manufacturing Supply Co. (by 1896), Sheffield Goods Manufacturing Co. (by 1910), and appears as S.G.S. Co. in 1921.

The founder, William Cheetham, was born in 1858, at Strood in Kent, just a few months before the family moved to Bethnal Green in the east end of London.  His father, George, worked for the GPO at Mount Pleasant.  William married Elizabeth Leach, a local girl, in 1881 and they moved to Sheffield where their two sons, George Halstaff (1883) and James Sydney (1887) were born.  His occupation at that time was stationer's assistant.

William Cheetham & Sons was established in 1889 (according to an advertisement in Country Life, 1909) at Havelock Works, Young Street, Sheffield.  Not long after the company was set up, William moved the family to Southport, for his wife's health.  Unfortunately, she died in early 1891; William married again and moved to Wolverhampton but maintained the business in Sheffield, presumably with a local manager.

William was recorded as a cutlery merchant rather than a manufacturer on the 1891 census so must have sourced his stock from elsewhere.  For example, he advertised Ivy pattern cutlery, which was the speciality of George Bishop (see image).  William acted as the local agent in Southport and, later, Wolverhampton but at some point, started to sell products by mail order and advertised a wide range of goods, including cutlery and electro-plated items nationally.  He is believed to be one of the pioneers of this method of selling (J. G. Graves launched his mail-order business in 1897).

By the early 1900s, the company was advertising itself as a manufacturing silversmith (see the Country Life advert). William opened a jewellery shop on Victoria Street in Wolverhampton and was recorded on the 1901 census as "jeweller and manufacturing silversmith" 

William Cheetham died in February 1910, aged 51, after contracting tuberculosis.  The Sheffield business continued for some time after his death - we have two stainless steek knives in the Collection, which indicates a date of at least 1919 and S.G.S. were operating from 14 Eighth Road, Tyler Street, Sheffield in 1921 (see image from Grace's Guide).

With thanks to Clive Cheetham, great grandson of William, for this information.