When he died in January 1986, Frederick Walter (Fred) James was Sheffield’s best-known Bowie knife maker.   He was born in Sheffield on 26 July 1920, the son of William W. James and his wife, Alice.  His father worked as a carver fork guarder.   When he left school at 14, Fred James joined Christopher Johnson as an apprentice pen and pocket knife materials maker.  When Johnson was taken over by Wostenholm in 1956, James moved to Washington Works.   Although not trained as a cutler, James acquired many of the skills of the old Sheffield Bowie knife makers.  This was made easier by his situation in Washington Works where many etching plates, die-stamps, and spare knife parts had survived from the I*XL era in the nineteenth century.   Wostenholm’s still attracted orders from American customers for the company’s most famous knife.   The result was that Fred James began to build a reputation for his Bowie knives.

In 1971, when Wostenholm & Rodgers merged, James decided to start his own business.   He rented a backyard workshop in Broomspring Lane, working for a time with hafter Herbert (Sandy) Lowe.   Outworkers helped with the forging (George Watts), grinding (Rowland Swinden) and acid-etching (Doris Walsh), so that James could assemble and finish fixed-blade knives in the traditional manner.  James specialised in Bowies, which were stamped and acid-etched with nineteenth-century marks and mottoes, alongside horse’s head and half-horse/half alligator pommels.   It was later alleged that many spurious I*XL Bowies, which appeared in the US collectors’ market when James was working showed his handiwork.  Whatever the truth of the matter, James’s reputation suffered.  In America, he has been described as one of the ‘most controversial figures in the history of modern knife making’ (Edmondson, 1994¹), whose ‘big heavy fake I*XL California Knives have bedevilled museums and collectors’ (Levine, 1997²).   California Knives that are likely to have been made by James can be seen in books by knife dealer Richard Washer (1974, pp.  130-1, 139, and dust jacket)³ and his associate Hayden-Wright (2007, pp.  280-1)⁴, who present the pieces as ‘circa 1850s’.   These knives became known as ‘Dickie Washer Specials’ (Brooks, 2004⁵).  However, the knives that James stamped with his own name are better regarded and he is remembered fondly in Sheffield.

^1. Edmondson, J R, ‘Fred James: The Man and the Mystery’, Knife World (April-May 1994)

^2. Levine, B, Levine’s Guide to Knives and Their Values (Northbrook, IL, 4th edn, 1997)

^3. Washer, R, The Sheffield Bowie and Pocket-Knife Makers 1825-1925 (Nottingham, 1974)

^4. Hayden-Wright, David, The Heritage of English Knives (Atglen, PA, 2008)

^5. Brooks, B K, ‘An Insider’s View of the Dickie Washer Specials’, Oregon Knife Collectors’ Knewsletter (March 2004)