© Ken Hawley Collection Trust - K.0369
Ellis Crossley (1845-1916) was born at Salford, Greater Manchester, the son of William Crossley (a joiner) and his wife, Sarah.
Advertisements cited an establishment date of 1860, though this may refer to Ellis’s arrival in Sheffield or the start of his apprenticeship as a file cutter (the Census, 1861, recorded him living in Solly Street with the family of Aaron Simpson, a file cutter). Not until the late 1880s did Ellis Crossley describe himself as a file manufacturer. His first works address was Broomspring Lane (back of), and then by 1901 he operated at Monmouth Lane.
He lived at Winter Street. He died at Sheffield Royal Hospital, West Street, on 14 April 1916. He left £274.
In the mid-1920s, the firm was based at Wepson’s Works, Grammar Street (and later at Burton Street). Evidently, Crossley’s also marketed stainless table knives. It was a ‘Ltd’ company after the Second World War and included the assets of Wilds (Wildfire) Ltd.
Crossley’s in the 1950s manufactured and advertised rasps and emery wheel dressers. By the 1960s, it concentrated on the production of these abrasive wheel dressers and cutters. The firm was listed at Niagara Works, Beeley Wood Road, in 1974.
Crossley’s was later part of abrasives company Abrafact Holding Ltd, Beulah Road.