By the 1980s, Graham Clayton (1944-2020) was one of the last makers of Sheffield spring-knives and Bowies.  He entered the trade in 1959, aged 15, as an apprentice spring-knife cutler at George Wostenholm.   Graham’s introduction to life in a noisy factory was something of a shock after schooldays.   ‘The days were so long’, he recalled to the present author in an interview in 1987: ‘I couldn’t believe how long the days were’.   The pay was £2 14s 1d [£2.70] for 52 hours (with Saturday working that was 56 hours):

The man who apprenticed you paid your wages, though for the first six months the firm paid.   It was piece work, so they made sure you soon started earning your money.   They said:  ‘Tha’d better start earning ya’ money, ya’ kno’ - only a month t’ go an’ ‘ave got to start payin’ your wages’.

At first he was given simple tasks, such as drilling.   He became acquainted with the old Sheffield patterns, such as stock knives.  The materials – drop-forged blades, inner scales, and handles – were supplied by Wostenholm’s first-class materials shop.   Cutlers such as Graham had the complex task of assembling the parts.  Soon he was introduced to Bowie-knife maker Fred James and for the first time began working with ivory, pearl and horn.   The rate of production obviously slowed – ‘instead of making 15-20 dozen knives per week, you might do half a dozen or less’ – but it was more satisfying.  

In 1965, Graham married Pauline née Overall and determined to try and do better than the £12 a week he was earning at Wostenholm’s (when workers in other trades could earn £20 a week).   He moved to Ibberson’s for a job that proved far more congenial.  ‘Ibberson’s was marvellous to work for’, recalled Graham, ‘it was a little family firm.   So long as you did enough knives per week they were happy.   The knives were all these little lobster patterns.   So I got into making pearl pocket-knives’.   Graham was now hourly paid at 6s 6d [65 pence] per hour.   But Ibberson’s was taken over and Graham returned to the Washington Works.   Eventually, he shared a workshop with Fred James, making lock-knives and Bowies, especially for Australia and Canada.   ‘It was a big trade.   Every day there were large packing cases full of knives ready for Australia, New Zealand and Canada’.  But Wostenholm’s was about to be swallowed in a series of mergers that included Joseph Rodgers.   ‘It was a terrible pattern’, reflected Graham, ‘takeover, transfer of production, sale of site’.   He saw what was coming and joined Slater Bros in Arundel Street.   Here he continued to make Bowie and spring knives – some stamped with Slater’s acquired marks, such as Jonathan Crookes.

In 1974, he began his own business.   Some friends helped him tap the growing American collectors’ market by displaying his Bowie and folding knives and at knife fairs.   Graham himself visited America in 1978 and 1980 and participated in a number of knife shows.   The result was a steady stream of orders.   Trevor Digby, a Sheffielder who lived permanently in the US, supplied him with many orders.   Hence much of Graham Clayton’s output was marked DIGBY’S, rather than ‘Clayton’.  He also used the trade name ‘COUTEL’. 

Graham Clayton eventually assumed Fred James’s mantle as Sheffield’s most prolific Bowie knife man.   He also made folding knives with modern designs.  During the latter stages of his career his workshop was at Kelham Island Industrial Museum, where he worked alongside one of the last grinders, Rowland Swinden.   However, by the early 1990s Swinden had retired and Graham Clayton had abandoned knifemaking.   His workshop at Kelham Island Museum was later occupied by Stan Shaw.   He died on 16 November 2020, aged 76.