This firm had its roots in the activities of John Brookes (1825-1865), who was the son of Jonathan Brookes (a cutler living in Broomhall Street) and his wife, Gertrude.  His younger brother was Jonathan Brookes.  By 1851, John had launched his own business.  At the Great Exhibition (1851), he displayed ‘articles suitable for ladies’ work-boxes and gentleman’s dressing cases, made in steel, ivory and pearl; button hooks, nail files, tweezers, corkscrews and stilettos’.  He received an Honourable Mention from the Exhibition jurors.  By 1854, he was in Mulberry Street and advertised in the local directories. 

In 1858, John Brookes was joined by Thomas Crookes (1826-1912).  The latter was the son of John Crookes, a saw grinder in Owlerton, and his wife, Ruth.  In 1851, Thomas was a solicitor’s managing clerk.  How he met Brookes is unknown, though both were Nonconformists.  They acquired a warehouse, workshops, engine-house, and grinding wheel behind a house at 58 St Philip’s Road.  The factory, Atlantic Works, was previously occupied by Thomas Wigfall and Charles Cutts.  In the summer of 1858, the partners entertained their workmen and their invited friends to a day of cricketing and toasting at The Plough Inn, Sandygate.  Brookes underlined the partners’ intention to produce first-class goods, while Crookes promised a just remuneration for labour.  These were common sentiments but had some substance:  Brookes and Crookes were already known for paying bonuses for new designs (Sheffield Independent, 19 June 1858).

In 1859, Brookes & Crookes appeared in Melville’s Commercial Directory of Sheffield as ‘manufacturers of spring knives and dressing case instruments’.  John Brookes told the Census in 1861 that the factory employed about 50 men.  But the partnership proved short-lived.  Brookes died at West Riding Pauper Lunatic Asylum, near Wakefield, on 14 February 1865.  He was aged only 39 and had died from apoplexy and ‘chronic disease of the brain’.  He  was buried in the General Cemetery in an unconsecrated grave, leaving under £800.  His tombstone still stands in the Cemetery..  Thomas Crookes took over the business and was helped by William Westby, his works manager.  Westby had been born in Mansfield, Nottinghamshire, in about 1823.  By 1861, Westby and his family had moved to Atlantic Works, where Westby was the manager of the spring knife department.  Westby became a partner, continuing to reside at Atlantic Works, and managing the business while Thomas Crookes undertook frequent sales trips.  In the Census (1871), Westby described himself as a spring knife manufacturer employing 80 men, 20 boys, and eight girls.  By 1879, he had moved home to Broomspring Lane.  He had retired by 1891 and died in that year in Weston Street on 9 May, aged 66.  He had been a Wesleyan preacher and was buried in unconsecrated ground in the General Cemetery.  He left £2,239.  His sons – Joseph and John – later set up their own cutlery firms.

After Westby’s death, Thomas Crookes continued to run the business.  He evidently spent long spells away from home, since he was rarely enumerated in the Census.  In 1896, he was described as ‘still hale and vigorous, and as energetic as ever in making his journeys through Ireland, Scotland, and the north and south of England, London, Paris and Brussels’ (Men of the Period, 1896).  He concentrated on his business, ignoring public affairs, and was later joined by his sons, Herbert (1853-1954) and Willis (1859-1941).  Their firm was never amongst the largest cutlery factories in Sheffield – in 1881 it employed 130 workers – but nevertheless its ‘Bell’ trade mark became a badge of excellence.  The company registered silver marks in 1864 and 1893.  The Implement and Machinery Review (1 July 1882), related how ‘a stranger would, in looking for the Atlantic Works, seek in vain for a block of buildings with an imposing elevation, with extensive showrooms filled with magnificent and costly goods, or with anything in the shape of display.  What he would find would be an admirably arranged establishment filled with an array of intelligent, respectable-looking workmen, industriously engaged in achieving the splendid results afterwards to be seen in the warehouse’.  The journal emphasized the output and variety of its sportsman’s and multi-blade knives.

In 1878, Brookes & Crookes launched ‘The Stanley Knife’ in honour of explorer Henry Stanley.  This was a patented design, with the name also registered as a trade mark.  A robust (and heavy) sportsman’s knife, the ‘Stanley’ was nearly 12-inches in length when the locking master blade and saw were opened.  It had a cartridge extractor, screwdrivers, marlin spike, pen blade, file, awl/drill and (beneath the scales) scissors and  ruler.  The shielded scales were chequered horn or ivory.  Surviving examples are shown in Littman (2008).  Even in those days, this quality was pricey: in the 1890s, Brookes & Crookes’ multi-blade knives could cost as much as £30.  But such articles won a string of prize medals at the London Exhibition (1862), Paris (1867), Vienna (1873), Philadelphia (1876), and Calcutta (1884).  Brookes & Crookes’ display at Vienna of table cutlery, razors, Bowie, ‘fly-open’, and complicated smoker’s and botanist’s knives was featured in The Sheffield Independent, 6 June 1873.  Gadget knives later included a cyclist’s knife, with spanners;  a patent veterinary knife, with Syme’s lancet and other operating instruments; and a patent graduating cartridge extractor.  In 1889, Thomas Crookes also patented a triple-action-guard safety razor (Waits, 2009¹).

By 1900, the third generation was active through the sons of Herbert Crookes Sen.: Herbert (1878-1954) and Cyril (1880-1966).  In 1908, the firm became a private limited company, with £15,000 capital.  Thomas Crookes died, aged 85, on 16 February 1912 at his home, Normandale House, in the Loxley Valley.  His gravestone can be seen at Loxley Independent Chapel.  He left £16,243.  After its Victorian heyday, Brookes & Crookes experienced a fate common to Sheffield’s top pocket-knife firms – a slow death.  In 1930, its capital was reduced from £15,500 to £6,750.  It was one of the last firms to employ skilled grinders, buffers, and knife makers, but after the Second World War the demand for its quality products fell drastically.  Willis Crookes, Normandale House, Loxley, died on 25 January 1941.  He left £18,027.  His brother Herbert Crookes, Elmore Road – who was chairman and joint-managing director – died on 7 February 1954, after sixty years with the firm.  He was described in The Sheffield Telegraph, 9 February 1954, as an authority on racing pigeons and English owls.  He left £11,499.  His burial in Crookes Cemetery was attended by his brothers, Cyril and Thomas.  Cyril died on 10 August 1966, leaving £18,828.  By then, the family’s involvement in cutlery had ended.  In 1957, Atlantic Works was closed, its assets auctioned, the factory demolished, and the site covered by an apartment block.  Ashley Isles (1993) stated that the last item in the auction catalogue was a 300 horse-power gas engine around which the factory had been built.  With no way of removing it, Iles believed that the engine was entombed in the foundation of the flats.  The firm was formally liquidated in 1964.

^1. Waits, R K, Before Gillette: The Quest for a Safe Razor Inventors and Patents, 1762-1901 (2009)