Fiberloid was registered in Sheffield as a private limited company in 1908, with £5,000 capital. It was designated as a cutlers and silversmiths and dealers in celloloid, xylonite, vulcanised fibre, ivory, and horn. Essentially, it manufactured and marketed cutlery handle materials, especially man-made substitutes such as celluloid. The new company acquired the rights from Fiberloid Co of New York to manufacture ‘grained ivory’ and ‘creamed ivory’.  This was a response by the directors to the rising cost and predicted ‘gradual famine’ of African ivory (Sheffield Daily Telegraph, 2 May 1913).

Fiberloid’s owners were Edward Snow and three members of the Marsden family: Edwin Marsden and his sons, Arthur Edwin and Bernard. Snow operated a family business as a carver and fluter at Century Works, 92 Carver Street;  the Marsdens were ivory cutters and haft and scale cutters at 99 Division Street (which was also Fiberloid’s registered office). Edwin Marsden died in 1910, leaving over £21,000; and his sons dissolved their partnership in 1917. By the end of the First World War, Fiberloid occupied Woodfold Works, at Woodfold, Pitsmoor.  A photograph of this factory (taken in about the 1960s and available at PictureSheffield: ref. s38017) shows a three-storey building. 

Edward Snow died at his home Glen Lea, Glen Road, on 25 May 1924, aged 53. An obituary described him as the managing director of Fiberloid, director of Arthur Lee (Celluloid) Ltd – registered in 1917 with £1,000 capital – and proprietor of Edward Snow Ivory Works (Sheffield Daily Telegraph, 29 May 1924). He was buried at Ecclesall, leaving £28,700.  Arthur Lee (Celluloid) Ltd was wound up in the following year. Arthur E. Marsden died at his home at Totley on 10 August 1931, aged 73. His burial was at the General Cemetery. He left £1,205 (net personalty £1,075).

Fiberloid continued to trade, but its ownership is unclear in the interwar years – as is the date when it began producing stainless table knives. At some stage, probably after 1939, Fiberloid was acquired by George Henry Froggatt, who operated it alongside his other business, Joseph Lee & Co. By the start of the 1950s, Fiberloid and Lee shared the same address – Wood Fold, Pitsmoor – and presumably the same factory. The local trade journal (International Cutler, 1951) described how Froggatt had applied modern engineering methods at Fiberloid to manufacture hollow-handled all steel cutlery, with the knife weighing less than 1oz. ‘Dr Froggatt does not claim the new cutlery will do away with the old, but considers it ideal for airlines, hotels, and shipping companies’. In a little over three months 20,000 articles were said to have been produced.  Two years after Froggatt’s death in 1966, Fiberloid was struck off the register.