Albert Henry Bisby (1879-1952) was the son of William Bisby, razor grinder, Bramall Lane, who died on 14 April 1886 (aged 41) and was buried in City Road Cemetery.  Albert attended a charity school. An advertisement stated that Bisby’s was founded in 1850.  Certainly, Bisby was in business by 1908, when he advertised for razor grinders at Clough Works, Queen’s Road.  His first appearance in a directory was in 1919, when A. H. Bisby & Co, razor manufacturer, was in Rockingham Street and Queen’s Road (Bisby was a director of Bayliss & Co, at the same address). Bisby’s became ‘Ltd’ in 1922, with £10,000 capital and Bisby and J. P. Barker as directors.  By the 1930s, the firm employed about fifty in Portobello Place.  Bisby registered patents for table knives (casting bolsters) in 1926; and for scissors in 1935.  

After the War, the firm’s Murray Works in Portobello sold table and dessert knives (including child’s sets), pocket knives, carvers and bread knives, and electro-plate.  Bisby died on 3 December 1952, aged 73.  He lived at Moscar Rise, Hollow Meadows, and left £54,491.  The firm became Bisby-Vickers Ltd, Portobello and Sylvester Street, but it was liquidated in 1961.  A.H. Bisby remained at Murray Works, Carlisle Street, but it was wound up in 1968.  Bisby’s owned several marks: ‘Thomas W. Ward’, ‘EVERLASTING’; ‘J. Coe’, ‘CUTWELL’ and ‘SUPERB’; ‘J. Wain’, ‘NONE TO COMPARE’, ‘W. J. BELCHER & CO’, and ‘WILLIAM BECKETT & CO’; and ‘Stacey Bros’, and ‘ARK’.