The owner of this company was Bernard (Maurice) Miller (1902-1953), who was from a Jewish cutlery family. The reversed name may have been to differentiate it from Harris Miller, which was run by Bernard’s father. Bernard had been born in Sheffield on 6 August 1902.  His wife was Sophie, whom he married in 1925 at Stepney, East London.  In 1927, Bernard began trading as a cutlery manufacturer in Sheffield.  His first address in a directory was in 1928 at Armada Works, Wellington Street. His early business dealings may have been fraught: in that year, a sale of stainless table cutlery and basic office equipment was organised at Armada Works by the receiver for the debenture holders of an unnamed company (Sheffield Daily Telegraph, 24 November 1928). By 1931, M. Bernard & Co was listed at Bath Street Works. The firm next occupied factory premises at 60 Rockingham Street. Photographs show a modest three-storey building at the junction with St Thomas Lane. Until 1933, its tenement-style workshops had housed Hawksworth, Eyre & Co. The latter had auctioned its unfinished stock and machinery, which included boiler, steam drop hammers, lathes, and fly presses (Sheffield Independent, 23 February 1933). When Miller took over, he named the factory Duracut Works.

The Register of England & Wales (1939), enumerated Bernard M. Miller as a cutlery manufacturer, living at Montgomery Road with his wife, Sophie, whose job was ‘taking charge of cutlery office’. On the eve of the Second World War, the firm was becoming busy. Miller was recruiting drop stampers for the cutlery forge; youths aged between 14 and 18 for general work; spoon and fork outworkers; and female buffers. One advertisement required ‘sand dolliers for table knives’, with ‘approved air raid shelters provided’ (Sheffield Daily Telegraph, 9 October 1939). Evidently, the original Duracut Works proved too cramped and Miller decided to expand at a new factory further along Rockingham Street. Its opening was dedicated with a stone plaque in the factory wall alongside the street, which read: ‘M. Bernard & Co April 1939. This stone was laid on behalf of the above by Miss Shifra and Master Derek Miller’.  (These were Bernard Miller’s children.)  During wartime, the firm converted to making bombs and aircraft parts for Rolls Royce (information from David Sayliss, 2012). 

After the War, M. Bernard & Son resumed the manufacture of table knives, carvings sets, spoons, and forks. The trade mark was ‘DURACUT’. Bernard Miller was interested in the technology of table knife manufacture and in 1944 began applying for and publishing patents relating to the manufacture of knife blades and bolsters. Bernard’s became a limited company in about 1948. In the post-war boom, Bernard Miller targeted the North American market. He was a frequent visitor to New York and Canada after the War. In 1948, he incorporated M. Bernard & Son (Canada) Ltd, which had an office at Montreal. Miller’s cutlery patents were invariably registered in the USA and Canada, besides the UK . Between 1950 and 1951, he also incorporated several small companies in Sheffield – B. Thomas & Co (Cutlers) Ltd; J. Mead & Co (Cutlers) Ltd; John Bain & Co (Cutlers) Ltd; and Shefmor Cutlery Co Ltd. Each had a capital of £1,000 and most were based at Duracut Works, though Bain’s office was at 24 Newcastle Street (on the other side of the Rockingham Street factory block). Bain’s was later described as a forging factors.  Bernard’s also absorbed Rockingham Forge Ltd (which had been launched as a cutlery forger in 1939 by Stanley Bingham and Z. Rahan, with £500 capital).

This expansion plan was hit by a setback when Bernard Miller died suddenly on 15 March 1953. He was buried at Ecclesfield Jewish Cemetery.  His son, Derek (1929-2018), was an undergraduate at Cambridge, who reluctantly gave up his studies to return to Sheffield and run the business.  He took over as manager and continued the firm’s American involvement.  In 1953, he registered with Doris Kathleen Cutts (1914-1999) a UK and US patent for the manufacture of table blades.  Miss Cutts had been a wages clerk and typist at a cutlery factory before the War (probably Bernard’s) and had presumably been promoted.  Bernard’s and its family owners always kept a low profile. Most of the output appears to have been destined for overseas markets and the company never seems to have advertised. ‘Duracut’ cutlery was aimed at the mass market, but some surviving examples of its boxed carving sets are stylish and well made.  M. Bernard & Son Ltd and its satellite companies were liquidated in 1976.  Three years later, Derek Miller was the New York sales representative for a group of Sheffield manufacturers (New York Times, 10 May 1979).  

Duracut Works at 60 Rockingham Street was bought by Alan Wasden Ltd and used for hand tool manufacture.  Wasden sold the Duracut site and mark in 2006.   The factory was demolished and modern buildings now cover Rockingham Street and Newcastle Street.  The fate of the stone plaque is unknown.   However, photographs of the former factory and a distant view of its plaque can be seen in Lee (2005)¹.  Following the closure of M. Bernard & Son, Derek Miller continued trading as an import/export agent under the business imprint of ‘Yorkshire Silver’.  He died in London in 2018.

^1. Lee, D, ‘Land Between Rockingham Street and Newcastle Street’ (Report No 1450, Archaeological Services WYAS, October 2005)