In 1901, this firm was listed in Eyre Street at the former address of George Gill & Son.  This George Gill (c.1838-1908) had been a spring-knife manufacturer at Portland Works in West Street and then Randall Street (see R. F. Mosley).  He died on 7 December 1908, leaving £363 to his wife, Patty Pink, and their sons.  These included George Alfred Pink Gill (1861-1940), who next directed the firm from Eyre Lane.  In about 1921, the enterprise moved to St Philip’s Road; and in 1923 registered a ‘FRIAR’ trade mark.  Gill’s followed the vogue for serrated knives by offering ‘SERRATA’ edge cutlery.

In 1930, George Gill & Sons (Sheffield) Ltd was incorporated as a table and pocket cutlery manufacturer.  Capital was £1,000 and the directors were George Russell Gill (1890-1959) – George Alfred’s son – and George Henry Hastings (1887-?).  In 1935, they registered an ‘Improvement’ in knives, by designing an edge with fine V-shaped grooves (or flutes).

However, the company was liquidated in 1948. The ‘FRIAR’ mark was sold to Sanders & Bowers.  But most of the assets were acquired by S. Murray & Co, a maker of medical glassware. Thus was launched George Gill & Sons (Surgical) Ltd.  Under its new owners, Gill’s manufactured tailors’, dressmaking, and hairdressers’ scissors, but its speciality was surgical and dissecting instruments (trade marked ‘SURGILL’).  In 2023, Murray’s still had a factory in Sheffield for manufacturing surgical instruments.