In 1928, Wafer Razor Co was registered as a private limited company at St Mary’s Road, with £1,000 capital.  The firm was owned by the Cam family.  Fred Cam (1877-1957) was a mechanical engineer, who in 1908 had apparently designed his first safety razor machine.  By the 1920s, he was listed in directories as a cutlery manufacturer and engineer.  He operated a company at St Mary’s Road and Mary Street, where he specialised in machinery for the production of table cutlery, tools, and safety razor blades.  In 1923, he employed about a hundred hands (though in less depressed times the workroll was said to be over 150).  

Fred Cam was hired by Dominion Steel Corporation to equip and install a safety razor plant.  The experience proved an unhappy one, but it may have encouraged Cam to launch Wafer Razor Co.  He was assisted by his son, Victor Reginald Cam (1901-1972).   Fred designed the plant and was the technical director; Victor was the works manager and commercial director.  In 1929, the factory was transferred to June Works, Earsham Street, near the big steel works in Carlisle Street.  Wafer Razor Co had several trade marks, including: ‘O’YES’, ‘EMERALD’, ‘WEE MACGREGOR’, ‘OUTPOST’, ‘TITCH’, ‘REBEL’, ‘BUCCANEER’, ‘MAJESTIC’, ‘MYSTIC’, ‘CHEERIO’, ‘SUPA CHEERIO’, ‘CHIN CHIN’, ‘VIM-VIM’, and ‘THE LILY’.   

The company began promisingly, if press reports can be believed.  In 1931, orders were reported for ‘Chin Chin’ blades from Japan, Hungary, Poland, Siberia, New Zealand, Canada, South Africa, and Greece.  In 1932, Wafer acquired the safety-razor blade plant of R. S. Mitchell.   In that year, a doubling of Wafer Razor’s output was planned.   The firm also sold automatic razor making machines.   A ‘colossal order’ from Rumania had been booked for ‘Cheerio’ blades; and the output of the firm’s penny blades was stated to have reached 2m a month (Sheffield Daily Telegraph, 27 February 1932).  The factory typically relied on female labour.  One journalist was shown the ‘nursery’, where he saw ‘girls being trained for various manual operations, but already their fingers and hand movements were so dexterous that they could not be followed by the eye’ (Sheffield Daily Telegraph, 30 December 1932).

Fred had continued his engineering company.  In 1936, Fred Cam (Engineers) Ltd was registered, with £1,000 capital, at Earsham Street.   Fred Cam, V. R. Cam, and Mary Emma Cam (Fred’s wife) were the directors.  Little is known of the Cams personally.   However, we do know that Fred, who lived at Kenwood Park Road, once lost ‘Polly’, his West African talking parrot, after the ‘very clever bird’ had lifted the latch on her cage and disappeared.  After an appeal in the press, the fugitive was soon apprehended in Aizlewood Road, when Polly greeted its owner with the words: ‘Hello, Fred.  What are you doing?’ (Sheffield Daily Independent, 28, 30 August 1937).

During the Second World War, Wafer Razor Co and Fred Cam (Engineers) moved to Hill Street and John Street (off London Road, St Mary’s Gate).  Fred and Victor Reginald remained directors.  However, Fred died on 11 October 1957, leaving an estate of £6,018.  Victor Reginald died on 26 December 1972.  He left £153,927.  Wafer Razor Co ceased trading in about 1960 and was liquidated in 1965, when the address was Hill Street.  The last director was Victor’s son, Reginald Victor Cam (1933-2005), who in 1984 also liquidated Fred Cam (Engineers) Ltd and an associated company Fred Cam (Tech Weld) Ltd.  The plant, machinery, and tools were auctioned.