Alfred Field (1814-1884), the son of William and Mary, was born and died at Leam House, Leamington.  His father was a Unitarian clergyman and conducted a private school, where Alfred was educated.   In 1836, he began a hardware business in Birmingham with his brother Ferdinand (1810-1885).  Four years later, a branch office – Field, Parker, & Field – was opened in Platt Street, New York City.   When Parker withdrew after three or four years, the partnership became F. E. & A. Field.   The house subsequently became Field, Ibbotson & Co, Pearl Street, with the addition of Robert Ibbotson (see Ibbotson, Peace).    In 1863, the latter retired and the Pearl Street business became Alfred Field & Co.

In 1842, Alfred Field had married Charlotte Errington (1817-1880) in New York City.  She had been born at Yarmouth, England.  Their son, Henry Cromwell Field (1853-1929), was born in New York, but a year after the birth Field decided to return to England to manage his enterprise from Birmingham.  After Ibbotson retired in 1863, Field relied upon other partners in New York: notably, Benjamin Franklin Errington (1822-1901), who was presumably Charlotte’s brother; and Henry Thomas Minchew.  After about 1870, the New York office was staffed by an American, Alanson Henry Saxton (1838-1911).   Henry (Harry) C. Field also joined his father as partner.  In the late 1860s, Field’s New York office was in John Street, but later moved to Chambers Street and Reade Street.   In 1877, it bought the New York agency of F. W. Harrold, which was also based in Birmingham.

By 1872, Alfred Field & Co had a Sheffield address in Headford Street / Milton Street, but almost immediately occupied premises at 23 Westfield Terrace.  From advertisements in the local press for buffers, whetters, and warehouse workers, it is clear that Field was a merchant and not a manufacturer (Sheffield Independent, 18 August 1888).  He appointed agents to run the office: first, E. M. Dickinson, and then Maurice Ward (1851-1914) and B. H. Bates.   (Ward was the nephew of James Ward)  With staff in Liverpool, Birmingham (the Parade and later Edmund Street), and New York, Field was well placed to provide cutlery (razors, pocket knives, Bowies), guns, and general hardware to the American market.  He also had an office in Solingen managed by Walter Klass, from where Field’s sourced cutlery for the USA.

By the end of his career, Alfred Field had established himself as a major ‘foreign merchant’ and made a fortune.  On 28 May 1884, The New York Times announced his death on 25 May, aged 70, from an abdominal tumour.  The Birmingham Daily Post, 28 May 1884, also carried a detailed obituary.   He left his family a considerable estate of £90,844 (about £11.5m at current prices).

The business continued under his son Henry C. Field and A. H. Saxton.  In Sheffield, it remained in Westfield Terrace, styled as a manufacturer of cutlery, scissors, electro-plate goods, and general merchant.  By 1888, the address was Continental Cutlery Works, Westfield Terrace.   Field’s had acquired new trade names: ‘CONTINENTAL CUTLERY CO’ and ‘ALEX.  FRASER & CO’.  ‘Collins & Wallace’ was another named listed at Field’s Westfield Terrace address.  Field’s chief mark was a picture of bird’s neck (a heron), but in 1890 it also bought the ‘PROTOTYPE’ and arrow mark of Edward Gem, besides the marks of Joseph Kirkby & Sons.   ‘STONER & COMPY’ was another Field trade name.  Field’s marketed American pocket knives under its own name and the trade mark ‘PROGRESS’ (Goins, 1998¹).  ‘CRITERION’ and ‘MAPLE LEAF’ (words and picture) could also be found on Field’s products.

In the late nineteenth century, one of Field’s major challenges was the rising America tariff on imported goods, such as hardware (Sheffield Independent, 28 December 1886).  A. H.  Saxton was the firm’s ‘voice’ in the USA, where he appeared at various Tariff Hearings in Washington in the 1880s and 1890s and staunchly opposed the imposition of higher import taxes.  Despite the tariff, Field’s continued to sell English, French, and German hardware to American customers.  Field’s was the US agent for Joseph Rodgers & Sons and Joseph Elliot.  When the American tool industry developed, Field imported US ‘novelties’ into the UK.

In 1913, a private limited company – Alfred Field & Co (Sheffield) Ltd – was formed, with £15,000 capital, after Field’s absorbed Stacey Bros at Ark Works, Trafalgar Street.  The board was split into ‘A’ directors: Henry C. Field (chairman), his son Richard Errington Field (1889-1918), and Franz Rudolph Dorken (1880-1957); and ‘B’ directors from Stacey’s: Francis Wright, J. W. Hubbard, and John Warren.  Dorken was a Birmingham merchant, who had been born in Brazil to German parents, and had been naturalised in 1912.  

Field’s and Stacey Bros traded as stand-alone names at Ark Works, using their own marks.  But Richard E. Field died at Edgbaston, Birmingham, on 10 November 1918, leaving £6,884.  In the late 1920s, Field’s relocated to Cambridge Street.  Francis Wright apparently left Field’s, taking the Stacey Bros name with him.  Henry C. Field, Birmingham, died from pneumonia at his residence Courtlands, Westbourne Road, Edgbaston, on 22 May 1929.  He was aged 76.  His obituaries paid tribute to a ‘Noted Birmingham Business Man’, who was a president of the Birmingham Chamber of Commerce, a JP, and descendant of Oliver Cromwell (Birmingham Gazette, 23 May 1929).  He was buried at Lodge Hill, leaving £46,403.   Field’s ceased trading in Sheffield in about 1933 (when it was in Eyre Street).  In the USA, Field’s had been incorporated in 1922, when William J. Corbet was president (he died in the same year, aged 65, in New Jersey).   A. Field & Co Inc, Chambers Street, New York, continued to trade after the demise of the Sheffield office.  Its catalogue in 1938 still offered cutlery by Joseph Rodgers & Sons Ltd and Sheffield-made woodworking tools by William Marples & Sons Ltd.  In England, Field’s company was struck off the register in 1973.

^1. Goins, J  E, and Goins, C, Goins’ Encyclopedia of Cutlery Markings (Indianapolis, 1998)