© SCC Picture Sheffield [s17942] - Milton Street at junction with Headford Street, Sykes Works including Joseph Fenton and Sons Ltd in June 1965
The trade press stated that this ‘old and distinguished house’ was founded by Joseph Fenton in 1795. Since the founder was not yet born, that date probably referred to the granting of the trade mark. Joseph was born in Sheffield in about 1803. Trade directories listed him as a pocket knife manufacturer in New Church Street (1833) and Division Street (1839). He may have been a partner in Lister, Son & Fenton in the early 1830s (see William Lister). This was dissolved in 1834. In the Census (1841), Joseph was enumerated as a cutler living in Division Street with his wife Mary. Their large family included three sons: Thomas Fenton (1830-1893), Joseph Manners Fenton (c. 1833-1901), and Marcus Fenton (1841-1897).
In the early 1840s, Joseph Fenton partnered George Clarke Shore in Fenton & Shore, which was listed in Division Street as a cutlery merchant and manufacturer. The partnership ended in 1857, when Shore & Son and Joseph Fenton & Sons were formed. Fenton’s was based at Essex Works in Scotland Street, with the founder and his sons, Thomas Fenton and Joseph Manners Fenton, as partners. In 1861, the firm employed about 150 men. In that year, Fenton was alleged to have pirated the horse trade mark of Samuel Hancock & Sons for use in South America (Sheffield Independent, 23 February, 9 March 1861). In 1864, Joseph Fenton Sen. retired, and his sons Thomas, Joseph, and Marcus operated the business. In 1867, it moved to Sykes Works, Eyre Street – the freehold of which was acquired – and the premises in Scotland Street were abandoned. Bagshaw Cockayne (1845-1892) joined as partner. Cockayne – the son of a draper – lived at Thorpe House, Norton Lees. In 1872, crucible melting furnaces, warehouse, and offices were leased in Bridge Street, where the firm began the production of steel castings.
In 1879, Fenton’s made a good showing at the London Exhibition of Cutlery, with its ornate table cutlery singled out for praise and a prize medal (Sheffield Independent, 22 April 1879). But the business was encountering problems and accumulating debts. In 1877, Joseph M. Fenton left the firm and moved to Dewsbury as an overseer. He was paid £1,000 on his retirement. The attempt to enter the steel castings trade was a failure and in 1879 the steel plant was sold to Savile Street Foundry & Engineering Co (on condition that Fenton’s received a share of any future profits). By 1880, Joseph Fenton & Sons was bankrupt: it had liabilities over £33,000 against assets of about £13,000. The failure was attributed to a trade depression and to political troubles in Ireland – Fenton’s business being described as ‘almost exclusively confined to the domestic and Irish trade’ (Sheffield Independent, 21 October 1880). However, poor management and the ill-considered move into the steel castings business – in which Fenton’s had little experience – also played a part (Sheffield Independent, 19 November 1880). A serious factory fire in October 1875 did not help.
Over the next decade or so, the old management team died out and the Fentons’ interest in the firm lapsed. Joseph Fenton died on 17 February 1886, aged 83, at his home in Priory Terrace. Bagshaw Cockayne later left Sheffield – possibly through ill-health – and died on 18 November 1892 at Pen-y-Craig Cottage, St Helier, Jersey. He was aged 48 and left £3,077. Thomas Fenton died on 26 August 1893, aged 63, at Stanley House, Ventnor Place, Sharrow. He was buried in the General Cemetery, leaving £1,871. Before his death, however, Thomas had re-established the family firm at Sykes Works, Matilda Street, with the help of (Francis) George Cornu (1856-1942) and John Thomas Roberts. Cornu had been born in the Strand, London, and was the son of John Peter Cornu (c.1815-1860), who was a hotel keeper. By 1871, Cornu was living in Sheffield and training as a merchant – perhaps at Fenton’s, because he was linked by marriage to the family (probably through Marcus’s marriage). After Thomas Fenton’s death, Cornu played an increasingly important role in the business, especially after J. T. Roberts withdrew in 1902.
The firm apparently traded successfully. The deferential trade press described Fenton’s factory as ‘commodious’, ‘well-appointed’, with machinery of the ‘most elaborate and effective character’. Apparently, it had about 300 to 400 workers in the early 1890s, though this was an exaggeration (Century’s Progress, 1893). A three-storied block of workshops, powered by a steam-engine, produced Fenton’s specialities – table and butchers’ knives, pocket knives, and files. Sportsman’s knives, Bowies, dirks and other hunting knives were displayed in the firm’s showrooms. Fenton’s traded throughout the UK, and also shipped to Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Africa and China. Ireland remained an important market for the firm in the late nineteenth century.
In 1919, George Cornu and his son, George Maurice Cornu (1881-1968) were directors. In 1923, Fenton’s became a private limited company, with £15,000 capital. The directors were G. M. Cornu (who was also chairman) and J. W. Sizer. However, the firm was wound up in 1933, when the chairman was Reginald George Fretson Smith. George Cornu, of Beech Hill Road, died in Sheffield on 3 November 1942, leaving £7,887. He had been a prominent Freemason (Stokes & Iliffe, 1929). After the War, the ‘Joseph Fenton’ name reappeared, ‘still going strong’, at Sykes Works in Milton Street. In 1962, it merged with Gregory Bros to form Gregory Fenton Ltd. Fenton’s mark, a Maltese Cross with a double diamond device, was granted in 1795. It acquired the ‘KEEP’ mark of Shore & Son. ‘ZENITH’, an acquisition from Joe Hatfield, was used on its twentieth-century silver-plated products.