John Round (1808-1877) was born in Harborne, Staffordshire, the son of Cornelius and Elizabeth née Astley.  In the Census (1841), John was a ‘plater on steel’ living with his family in  the courtyard premises of Wm. Hutton, Surrey Street, where Round was caretaker and involved in Hutton’s production of electro-plate.  In 1847, after a disagreement with the Huttons, he occupied a house / workshop in Tudor Street with £200 capital.  These premises (partly on the former site of Tudor & Leader) became The Spoon & Fork Works.  By 1851, when he was living in Tudor Street, Round employed 90 men and three females.

When John’s son, Edwin, joined the firm, it became John Round & Son, Tudor Works.  It was among the leaders in electro-plated goods and sold the better qualities of table knives and silver fruit-knives.  From 1861 (when the workforce was about 150), turnover grew from about £40,000 to £56,000 in 1870.  The firm had agencies and offices in Montreal, Paris, and London.  A silver mark was registered in Sheffield in 1867; and in the following year, Round’s had a two-page advertisement in the local directory.  In 1871, Edwin told the Census that the firm employed 350 workers.  The trade mark was ‘ALL THE WORLD ROUND’.

Round’s would be credited as ‘one of the pioneering and fostering firms of this [plated-goods] industry’ (Industries of Sheffield: Business Review, 1888).  However, its overseas ventures in Montreal and Paris incurred losses of £9,000 and £900, respectively.  The London office lost a further £7,000.  By 1870, John Round had debts of £40,000 and went into receivership.  Jarvis W. Barber, the receiver, judged that the underlying business was sound and so, with the agreement of creditors, the firm was reorganised.  In 1874 (when it registered another silver mark), the business was converted into a limited liability company, with a capital of £50,000 (£30,000 called up).  The new directors were Jarvis Barber, Henry Pawson (the publisher), and Joseph Gamble (1824-1905).  The latter was a partner in Moss & Gamble Bros (see Wilson, Hawksworth, Ellison) and a reputable Sheffield industrialist (he later became Alderman).  Gamble was appointed chairman.  John Round retained a nominal association with the company and some shares (for the use of his name), but he took no further part in the business.  He died from hepatitis and lung congestion on 18 March 1877, aged 68, at his residence, Machon Bank.  He left under £8,000.  Meanwhile, his son, Edwin, launched another venture.

Under new management, Round’s prospered and after 1874 paid shareholders a steady dividend of about 10 per cent.  Steps were taken to centralise the firm’s operations.  Originally, power for buffing and finishing was hired in Eyre Lane; later premises were leased in Eyre Street.  In 1882, the firm moved from Eyre Street to Tudor Street, when the demolition of the Pavilion Music Hall (which it had bought in 1880) enabled Round’s to install showrooms, two ranges of workshops, a plating room, and a new boiler (Sheffield Independent, 11 February 1882).  These facilities enabled Round’s to develop its specialities.  Besides silver-plated knives, spoons and forks, the firm became known for its presentation and competition plate; and for its  trowels, spades, and mallets for memorial stone-laying.

In 1886, Round’s board recruited Joseph Ridge, who had extensive experience in the Britannia and electro-plate trade  For the next twenty-five years, Ridge managed the company, in which he was said to have had a significant financial stake.  When Round’s was profiled by The Watchmaker, Jeweller & Silversmith (1 October 1889), Ridge was described as ‘the brain of the corporate body of John Round & Son … a man who has very few half-hours at his disposal.  In point of fact, to have half-an-hour with Mr Ridge, one must be content to take it in instalments’.  The journal painted a picture of a thriving establishment, though the account made plain that the factory site was cramped: ‘There has evidently once been a quadrangular space in the centre, but this has been so much encroached upon by the extension of the surrounding workshops and offices, that there is now barely sufficient room for the carts which bring the fuel for the engines to back in and deposit their loads’. The plating shop, with its dynamo and vats of cyanide, occupied the basement.  Estimates of the workforce vary, but it may have been about 250.  Like other silver-plate firms, Round’s relied on a large female cohort:

A glance in at the buffing shops showed girls in the act of knocking off for tea.  In their white overalls and red head-dresses, they looked a not unpicturesque, and certainly a very healthy lot.  They are, however, understood to make no pretensions to over-refinement of manners, and, as compared with the burnishers, between whom and themselves there are no dealings, they may even be considered coarse.  There was no symptom of this, however, when your correspondent looked in upon them.  They work under the supervision of a male buffer, who is responsible for all the work turned out (WJS, 1 October 1889).

In 1897, another phase of expansion led to the demolition of the buildings facing Tudor Street and their replacement with a new central building (Culme, 1987¹).  In 1898, additional workshops for cutlery and flatware were occupied at 118 Rockingham Street.  These were designated Moncrieff Works, though in 1912 its machinery was transferred to Tudor Works.  Round’s also had a London showroom at Holborn Circus.  Joseph Ridge retired in 1911.  He died on 2 April 1919 at his residence in Broomhall Place and was buried in the General Cemetery.  He left £6,587.  He was described, with unintentional irony, as an ‘all round man’, who ‘possessed in high degree the typical Sheffield qualities of capacity, thoroughness, industry, and conscientiousness … [though] … he was somewhat of a martinet in the managerial office’ (Sheffield Daily Telegraph, 3 April 1919).  A Churchman and temperance worker, he was one of the founders of the Wostenholm Hall Mission.  His son, Alfred C. Ridge, became a director of Hawksworth, Eyre. 

Round’s was profitable until the end of the War.  It had over fifty trade names (Whitham & Vickers, 1919²).  However, in the early 1920s, it began making losses, due to the depressed market in luxury goods and changes in consumer taste and technology.  In 1932, Round’s assets were purchased by Joseph Rodgers & Sons for £5,000 and transferred to Pond Hill Works.  Tudor Works was vacated.  Old photographs show a dingy four-storied building on the left of Tudor Street, as the road ran down to Arundel Street.  The site is now Tudor Square, in front of the Crucible Theatre.

^1. Culme, John, The Directory of Gold and Silversmiths, Jewellers and Allied Traders 1838-1914 (Woodbridge, Suffolk, 2 vols, 1987)

^2. Whitham, J H, and Vickers, D, (eds) Register of Trade Marks of the Cutlers’ Company of Sheffield (London, 1919)