Before they joined forces, the Gillows were furniture makers at Lancaster; the Warings were wholesale cabinet makers at Liverpool. Waring & Gillow Ltd was registered in 1903, with a share capital of £1.8m, of which £1.355,000 was paid up (London Evening Standard, 2 April 1903).  The company supplied high-quality furniture to the wealthiest families and outfitted and decorated luxury yachts and liners; hotels and public buildings; and royal palaces.  The firm had branches at London (where it had showrooms at Oxford Street), Lancaster, Liverpool, Manchester, and Paris (The Graphic, 12 June 1909).  After the First World War, the firm continued to cater for up-market clientele and offered to do ‘all the preliminary thinking’ for those furnishing their homes.  They contracted to supply everything – ‘not only chairs, tables, beds, carpets, and curtains, but all the linen, glass, cutlery, and utensils’ (The Bystander, 15 March 1922).  The quoted cost for furnishing and equipping a modern six-roomed house was £600 (about £35,000 at 2020 prices).  This stainless knife was probably commissioned from Thomas W. Cork, which was active after the early 1930s and used the ‘RAZOREDGE’ trade mark. After 1953, Waring & Gillow Ltd fell to a series of takeovers and mergers and ceased trading as an independent company.