Benjamin Grayson was born in 1816, the son of Thomas (a shoe manufacturer) and Elizabeth.  He may have been trained as a clerk.  By 1859, he was a partner in R. Broadhead & Co (formerly Broadhead & Atkin), Britannia Works, and worked as a traveller.  In 1860, his partnership with Rogers Broadhead, Thomas Marshall, and Joseph Thompson was dissolved.  Grayson and Thompson took over the business and registered a patent in 1866 for an ‘improvement in bread plates or dishes’.  In 1870, Grayson launched Benjamin Grayson & Son in Carver Street.  Grayson, with his son Frederick (c.1841-1905), employed five men and six women in the production of Britannia metal goods and electro-plate.  He soon moved his workshops to British Works, Holly Street, using the trade mark of a sailor brandishing a cutlass and a Union Jack ensign, above the word ‘BRITISH’.  The mark is prominently displayed in an 1879 directory advertisement.

Benjamin Grayson died at Durham Road on 1 February 1877, aged 60, and was buried in Ecclesall cemetery.  He left under £1,000.  Frederick continued the business, which by 1881 employed about 35 workers (about half of them women and girls).  Frederick’s brother-in-law was Henry H. Dodworth (see Matthew Dodworth & Sons).  The firm moved to Garden Street (1880s), then Carver Lane (1890s), and finally Napier Street (1900s).  It apparently ceased trading after 1913, when Frederick’s son, Benjamin Dodworth Grayson (1872-1953), was the senior partner.  The mark was acquired by Lee & Wigfull and then by James Barclay (see Hallamshire Silversmiths).