Edward Dewing Colquhoun (1833-1907) was the son of James (a coppersmith and later gas engineer) and his wife, Betty.  Edward was apprenticed to Marsden Bros and became a partner.  In 1881, he partnered Edwin Cadman (1856-1937), an edge tool ‘manufacturer’, who had been born in the Isle of Man and was the son of a farmer.  Colquhoun & Cadman was at Douglas Works, Arundel Street, and sold edge and joiners’ tools, besides skates, pen and pocket knives, and razors (Barley, 2002¹).  In 1890, the partners acquired H. M. Fawsitt.  In 1905, a silver mark was registered. 

Edward Colquhoun died at Moulsham House, Burrowlee, on 7 April 1907, aged 74.  He left £2,100 and was buried in Ecclesall (Sheffield Daily Telegraph, 8 April 1907).  Shortly before his death, the firm had been registered as a private limited company, with £10,000 capital (Sheffield Daily Telegraph, 21 January 1907).   No public issue was made; and no articles of association were registered.   The new offices were at Sylvester Works of Thomas Ellin & Co, which had been registered as a limited company only three days previously.  It was ostensibly a merger, with the managers of Colquhoun & Cadman on board as subscribers.  But it was more akin to a takeover, with Ellin’s henceforth marketing Colquhoun & Cadman’s ‘GO-AHEAD’ razors and ‘FAWSITT’ cutlery from Sylvester Works.  Cadman later retired to Foxley, Little Common, Bexhill-on-Sea.  He died on 31 July 1937, leaving £34,676 to his widow, Edith.  Colquhoun & Cadman Ltd was dissolved in 1980, though it had not appeared in directories since the Second World War.

^1. Barley, S, ‘Colquhoun & Cadman: Tool Factors or Manufacturers?’, Journal of Tool & Trades History Society (August 2002)