© Ken Hawley Collection Trust - K.1835
‘FIRBRITE’ was a trade name, which was registered in 1919 with the Company of Cutlers (R. T. Doncaster ‘Stainless Trade Names’, Cutting Edge, Magazine of the Sheffield Trades Historical Society, No. 6 1990). It may have been used for stainless cutlery and was lodged by David Baum, who was one of the owners of Baum Bros (Sheffield) Ltd. That firm was liquidated in 1925, though apparently David Baum continued to trade alone.
In 1929, ‘FIRBRITE’ was re-registered by steel makers Thos. Firth & Sons Ltd (perhaps after acquisition from Baum) for use on metal goods, including cutlery and edge tools. It appears among the many trade marks of Thos Firth & John Brown Ltd, which are listed in J. H. Whitham and A. Sykes, Register of the Trade Marks of the Cutlers’ Company of Sheffield (1953). The rare survival of ‘FIRBRITE’ knives suggests that the mark was not as widely used as the ubiquitous ‘FIRTH STAINLESS’.