Bradbury cased goods. Image courtesy of Geoff Tweedale
This company has traditionally been regarded as the oldest in the Sheffield silver-plate trade. The Bradburys traced their industrial lineage to Joseph Bradbury, who was apprenticed in June 1750 and was admitted as a Freeman in 1760. His son, Thomas Bradbury I (1763-1838), was apprenticed to Matthew Fenton & Co (later Fenton, Creswick, Oakes & Co). In 1773, Matthew Fenton, Richard Creswick, and William Watson, ‘plate workers’, Mulberry Street, registered a silver mark (only the second to appear in the Sheffield Assay Office registers). William Watson (1719-1793), of Shirecliffe Hall, was a wealthy vinter and landowner, who became a sleeping partner (Crosskey, 20111). He died on 22 July 1793, aged 74. A tablet memorial inside the parish church (now the Cathedral) marks his grave. In 1795, Matthew Fenton died, aged 48 (he was buried at the parish church on 7 February). A descendant of the Shirecliffe Hall family, Thomas Watson (1772-1832), then acquired the business. The latter was the son of Thomas (the landlord of The George, Hartshead) and Hannah née Newbould.
In 1795, Thomas Bradbury first appeared in the Assay Office register as a plate worker, with Thomas Watson and James Fenton (Matthew’s younger son), at the Methodist meeting yard (Mulberry Street). James Fenton left almost immediately and Thomas Bradbury became Watson’s co-partner. The firm was styled Thomas Watson & Co, which indicated Watson’s seniority. He travelled for the company both at home and on the Continent. He was appointed a Guardian of the Assay Office in 1803. Not until 1818 was Watson & Bradbury listed at Mulberry Street. They registered a silver mark in 1826. The partners conducted a particularly profitable trade with the USA, where George H. Newbould was agent. According to a brief house history, this trade expanded steadily until it was crippled by the Monroe Tariff (1824), though even then the firm never ceased entirely trading with America (Bradbury, 19242).
Thomas Watson died at Harrogate on 30 July 1832, aged 59, after a ‘severe illness’. At his death, he was a director of the Sheffield Banking Co (Leader, 19163). He was a Church Burgess and closely connected with local charities. He was buried at the parish church (Sheffield Cathedral), where a memorial and bust by local sculptor Edward Law commemorates him as ‘an active and munificent benefactor to the various charities of this town’. He left a fortune of over £70,000 (Clay, ii, 18954). Several benefited from his will, including the Deaf & Dumb Institution (Sheffield Independent, 11 August 1832).
Thomas Watson’s nephew, William, had joined the Mulberry Street business. He soon left and the Watson interest ended. The business became Thomas Bradbury & Son, with workshops at the corner of Arundel Street/Surrey Street. Thomas Bradbury I was the senior partner, alongside his son, Thomas Bradbury II (1786-1855), who had joined in 1800. A London office had operated since at least the 1820s. Thomas Bradbury I died on 10 December 1838 (aged 75), and was buried at the parish church. In that year, the firm registered its first mark under the name Thomas Bradbury & Son, Arundel Street. When electro-plate appeared, the company doggedly continued to make Sheffield Plate. Bradbury’s displayed a modest selection of Sheffield Plate products – coffee and tea services and the like – at the Great Exhibition (1851). Not until 1853 did Bradbury’s take out an electro-plate license from Elkington.
Thomas Bradbury II died on 4 January 1855, aged 69, and was buried at St Paul’s. His sons – Joseph Bradbury Sen. (1825-1877) and Edward Bradbury – promptly named the firm Thomas Bradbury & Sons. A mark under that name was registered in 1861 (with further silver marks in 1867, 1878, 1889, and 1892). After 1877, the partners were Thomas Bradbury III (brother of Joseph), Edward Bradbury, and John Sutherland Henderson (see White, Henderson). The latter told the Census (1881) that the workroll was fifty men, a dozen boys, and ten women. Henderson left in 1888. Three of Joseph Bradbury Sen.’s sons became partners: Walton Turner Bradbury (d. 1906, leaving £16,207); Joseph Bradbury Jun. (1858-1944); and Frederick Bradbury (1864-1949). The firm became a private limited company in 1905, with £50,000 capital. Thomas Bradbury III, ‘retired silver manufacturer’, died that year on 29 December, aged 65, and was buried in the General Cemetery. He had been Sheffield Assay Master and a president of the Sheffield Silver Association. He left £11,162. He was remembered as a ‘retiring man’, who was a bibliophile and silver collector. His collecting tastes were shared by Joseph and particularly by Frederick (a traveller for the firm), who became an authority on Sheffield Plate (Bradbury, 19125).
This family firm survived the Depression, though it was probably the most conservative of Sheffield silver firms. A trade catalogue, dating from the 1920s (in the author’s possession), illustrated cased tableware (such as dessert sets) that looked relatively modern. But Bradbury’s also offered an array of reproduction silverware, such as Charles II spoons. It also restored antique silver and Old Sheffield Plate. At the start of the Second World War, the directors – Joseph Bradbury Jun. and Frederick Bradbury – retired. According to Culme (1987)6, Joseph and Frederick wanted to hand over to a nephew, S. W. Turner, but in 1939 he had been interned as a former Blackshirt.
In 1945, the company was liquidated and the goodwill and dies sold to Atkin Bros. Frederick’s collection of silver was auctioned. It was bought by the Sheffield philanthropist Stuart Goodwin, who gifted the 600 pieces to the Company of Cutlers (the Bradbury collection of Old Sheffield Plate had meanwhile been bought by Sheffield City Council in 1943). Joseph died on 3 May 1944, aged 86, at his home in Broomfield Road. Frederick died, aged 84, on 26 January 1949 at his residence Tapton Lodge, Tapton House Road. They died wealthy, leaving £41,630 and £84,727, respectively.
1. Crosskey, Gordon, Old Sheffield Plate: A History of the 18th Century Plated Trade (Sheffield, 2011)
2 Bradbury, Thomas & Sons Ltd, Old Sheffield Plate and an Old Sheffield Firm, 1736-1924 (1924)
3. Leader, R E, The Sheffield Banking Company Limited: An Historical Sketch (Sheffield, 1916)
4. Clay, John W (ed), Familiae Minorum Gentium (London, 4 vols, 1894-6)
5 Bradbury, F., History of Old Sheffield Plate (London, 1912)
6 Culme, John, The Directory of Gold and Silversmiths, Jewellers and Allied Traders 1838-1914 (Woodbridge, Suffolk, 2 vols, 1987)