The Bedfords had links with a forge in Oughtibridge after 1792.  By the 1840s, John Bedford (1815-1898) was manufacturing steel at Portobello, Sheffield.  Bedford, Burys & Co operated in Penistone Road after 1859.  However, this partnership encountered financial problems and John Bedford became a Continental traveller for William Butcher.  Bramall & Bedford was formed in 1864, but ended in 1871, when John Bedford was joined by his sons – Henry Hall Bedford (1847-1930), John George Hawksley Bedford (1845-1914), and William James Bedford (1849-1925).  John Bedford & Sons operated from Lion Works, Mowbray Street, as a manufacturer of crucible steel, files, edge tools, and importer of Swedish iron (Men of the Period, 1896).  It became a limited company in 1897 (capital £50,000) and developed specialities in high-speed steel and rock drills (John Bedford & Sons Ltd, 150th Anniversary 1792-1942).  In the late nineteenth (and probably early twentieth) century, it also sold cutlery, including pocket-knives, razors, and Bowie-style knives (Goins, 1998¹).  These products were apparently factored.  The trade mark on cutlery was ‘BEDFORD’ and a lion.  In 1972, Bedford’s was acquired by an American tool multinational.  Bedford’s instrument division was sold in 1978 to Surmanco.  The old Mowbray Street frontage has been restored.  A fuller history of Bedford’s has been published in Tweedale, Directory of Sheffield Tool Manufacturers, 2020.

^1. Goins, J  E, and Goins, C, Goins’ Encyclopedia of Cutlery Markings (Indianapolis, 1998)