The Cam family was active in Sheffield in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century.   The family branches are difficult to trace, but it is clear that Cams specialised in the edge tool trade.  However, some Cams also manufactured or factored traditional cutlery products.   Perhaps the most prominent of the early firms was James Cam & Co, which by 1774 was a file maker in Westbar, but soon moved to Norfolk Street and became a merchant and manufacturer of scythes, saws, files, sheep shears, and a steel converter and refiner.  James Cam was involved in partnerships with James Hill (dissolved 1794), with Thomas, Joseph, and William Brown (dissolved 1801), and with Joseph Manners (dissolved 1817, because of bankruptcy).  

James Cam died at Greystones on 31 March 1837 (aged 65) and was buried in St Peter’s churchyard.  His only remaining son, John Cam, had predeceased him at Torquay on 9 March 1832, aged 29 (Sheffield Independent, 17 March 1832).   The latter had operated Cam & Hobson, merchant (with Francis Hobson).  In 1838, after James Cam’s death, his company, name and mark were acquired by Marshes & Shepherd.  Curiously, in 1842 the ‘celebrated’ mark for edge tools, ‘JAMES CAM’, was offered for sale (Sheffield Iris, 20 September 1842).  According to Pollard (1954¹), Marshes & Shepherd continued to employ James’s nephew (James) and another Cam, named Joseph (the latter as an American traveller).   Other Cams worth noting are John Cam (c.1792-1860), a steel merchant and spoke shave maker in Eyre Street; and Joseph Cam (c.1819-1893), joiners’ tool and skate manufacturer, St Lawrence Works, Trafalgar Street and Button Lane.

^1. Pollard, S, Three Centuries of Sheffield Steel (Sheffield, 1954)