This cutlery, tool, and surgical instrument manufacturer was registered in 1920 at 13 Arundel Lane, with £7,000 capital (Sheffield Daily Telegraph, 21 September 1920). The directors were Percy Turner, 171 Hunter House Road; and Francis Botham, 225 Wincobank Avenue (who was also secretary).  The firm manufactured (or probably factored) pen and pocket knives, butchers’ knives, table knives, scissors, and canteens of cutlery, with spoons and forks. These goods were offered in stainless steel or ordinary carbon steel. ‘We cater for Retail Ironmongers’, announced one advertisement. The brand name was ‘GILEBERT’. The origin of the company name is difficult to ascertain: so, too, the background of Turner and Botham. Both partners may have been born outside Sheffield. In the early 1920s, Botham was involved with J. H. Bramwell & Co Ltd, a Sheffield file and butchers’ steels maker.

Gill, Herbert & Co struggled. In about 1927, it relocated to Wheeldon Street. Its former premises (including office, warehouse, and two stockrooms) were offered to let. Gill, Herbert began to sell bread knives with serrated edges and carved wooden handles. But the Wheeldon Street operation soon folded. In 1932, the partners sold up. The sales notice showed that it was a factoring rather than manufacturing business. It had buffing spindles and buffs, but most of the other items were office-related: safe, desks, and a typewriter (Sheffield Daily Telegraph, 8 October 1932). Botham may have left Sheffield: a cutlery dealer of that name was living at West Hartlepool in 1939. He died in 1967.