The Shaw family specialised in the manufacture of Britannia metal goods.  The business was originally based in Whitecroft and Pea Croft, where Matthew Shaw was a whitesmith.  In 1821, he was listed at Whitecroft as a table knife, silver and brass bolster manufacturer.   His death at the age of 55 was reported in The Sheffield Independent on 3 May 1823.  He was buried at the parish church.   He apparently had eleven children by his wife, Hannah, several of whom were baptised at Queen Street (Congregational) Chapel (Sheffield Daily Telegraph, 16 March 1878).   These included two sons – George Shaw (1798-1861) and James Shaw (1800-1878) – who continued to trade in Britannia goods.  George Shaw & Co was listed at Pea Croft in the early 1820s.  By 1828, George had been joined by his brother James at Kellam’s Wheel.  Their partnership had ended by 1829, when George relocated to Allen Street.   He died on 9 November 1861, aged 63, and was buried at Wardsend Cemetery.

James Shaw had married Matilda Fisher and by 1833 was in partnership with her brother, Thomas Fisher (1803-1870).   Shaw & Fisher traded at Kelham Works, Kelham Island (in premises later covered by Kelham Rolling Mills).  In 1835, Shaw & Fisher moved to Howard Place, Eyre Lane.  In about 1842, the partners relocated to Norfolk Place, Suffolk Road.  

The firm’s specialities were tea and coffee sets, and dishes and covers.  Apparently, James Shaw was the traveller, who began by journeying by stagecoach to local markets, then extended his travels to London and the Continent.  In the early 1850s, extensive dealings were conducted through their agent in New York, Charles Congreve.   The latter’s correspondence with Shaw & Fisher in 1850 is lodged at Sheffield Archives.   By the 1870s, Shaw & Fisher goods were sold in Australia and New Zealand.   Thomas Fisher looked after the manufactory in Suffolk Road.  In 1857, Fisher’s workers – many of whom had long service records – presented him with an ornate silver testimonial plate worth 150 guineas.   The account of the ceremony filled two columns in the local newspaper (Sheffield Independent, 6 June 1857).

Shaw & Fisher must have traded very profitably.  The partners made fortunes comparable to other leading Britannia metal manufacturers, such as the Dixons.  Thomas Fisher died on 24 September 1870, aged 67, at his residence Norman House, Buxton.  He left nearly £80,000 (worth £9.7m at 2020 prices).   Shaw had retired to France in about 1860, and later lived in Jersey and Brighton.   He died on 1 March 1878, aged 77, at Roundhill Crescent, Brighton.  He left nearly £60,000.  He had no children and left his fortune to his sisters and other relatives and friends.   He also made generous bequests to Sheffield hospitals and to the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (Sheffield Daily Telegraph, 16 March 1878).  

In his last years, Thomas Fisher increasingly relied upon his son, Henry (1832-1878).  The latter was joined by Frederick Hall (c.1826-1893), who was the firm’s long-serving bookkeeper and traveller (Century’s Progress, 1893).   He was the youngest son of John Hall, who had been a cutlery manufacturer at Cornhill.  However, Henry Fisher died at his residence Norwood Grange on 21 December 1878.  He was buried in unconsecrated ground in the General Cemetery.   He had amassed even more money than his father: nearly £140,000 (worth over £17m).

Frederick Hall and his son, William Wootton Hall (1852-1899), became the owners of Shaw & Fisher.  In 1881, Hall told the Census that he employed 113 workers (seventy men, sixteen boys, and 37 women and girls).  The firm held patents for seamless Britannia metal dish-covers and Hall’s teapot infuser.   Other articles were an improved hydrostatic percolator and a range of earthenware jugs, with Britannia and electro-plated covers.  The company registered a silver mark ‘FH’ in 1884, which highlighted its involvement in the electro-plate trade.  Hard white-metal goods were also produced.  ‘SHAW & FISHER’ had been stamped on the firm’s products until 1872, when a cross-arrows mark (with the letters ‘S F’) was adopted (Scott, 1980¹).

Frederick Hall died from influenza and pneumonia at Oak Grove, Collegiate Crescent on 12 June 1893, aged 67 (Sheffield Daily Telegraph, 15 June 1893).  His funeral at the General Cemetery was well attended by fellow Congregationalists.   He left £95,047.   His son retired.  William Wootton Hall died at Sea View, Bath Road, Bournemouth, on 3 June 1899, aged 47.  He had never recovered from falling down steps at his Bournemouth hotel in the preceding December.  His unconsecrated burial was in the family grave in the General Cemetery (Sheffield Independent, 8 June 1899).  He left £7,989.  

The business had probably been contracting since the 1870s, when Britannia metal was increasingly superseded by electro-plate.   Shaw & Fisher had only slowly embraced this technology, perhaps because the Suffolk Road workshops were too small to install electro-plating tanks (though the firm did have melting furnaces).  In 1894, Shaw & Fisher’s assets, goodwill, stock-in-trade and tools were offered for sale as a going concern or in separate lots (Sheffield Independent, 1 May 1894).   The firm was broken up.   The cross arrow trade mark was acquired by James Deakin & Sons Ltd, which used it prominently.   That mark later passed to I. S. Dearden, when it acquired Deakin.

^1. Scott, Jack L, Pewter Wares from Sheffield (Baltimore, 1980)