This firm began as British Oneida Community Ltd, which was registered in 1926 at Walkley, Sheffield (capital £15,000).  It was a subsidiary of American group Oneida Ltd, which became one of the world’s largest manufacturers and distributors of ‘COMMUNITY PLATE’ cutlery and dinnerware (and had originated in 1848 as a religious settlement near Oneida Lake, New York State).  The Sheffield firm planned to market electro-plated spoons and forks, but not cutlery.  The output was to be sold to jewellers and silversmiths, with ‘Tudor Plate’ disributed to ironmongers.   In the 1930s, canteen sets were sold, which included knives.  A London office was opened in Regent Street and Kenwood products were advertised in The Tatler.

British Oneida was liquidated in 1939, but resurrected in Sheffield and London as Kenwood Silver Co Ltd.   (Kenwood was a village near Oneida, which was supposedly the hamlet from which George Wostenholm drew inspiration for his own Kenwood).  Kenwood Silver operated from Woodview Works, off Walkley Lane.   In 1956, it moved to a purpose-built factory in Eckington.  In 1960, the firm became Oneida Silversmiths Ltd and relocated to Bangor, Northern Ireland.  In 1998, it acquired the Australian flatware company, Stanley Rogers & Son Ltd.  Intriguingly, a firm of that name was listed in Sheffield in 1961.