This firm began in 1897 at Trafalgar Works. The original address was 58 Wellington Street, which was in a corner block of workshops where Wellington Street intersected with Trafalgar Street. The previous occupant, T. W. Petersen & Co, was vacating the workshops and advertised them as suitable for the cutlery trades (Sheffield Independent, 23 July 1896). The founder of the new business was Harrison Fisher (1871-1907), who had been born in Sheffield, the only son of William Fisher (c.1838-1912) and his wife, Elizabeth. William was a grocer and provisions dealer in West Bar Green; Elizabeth was the second daughter of Henry Wood, a fruiterer at Highfield. They had married in 1865. William had retired by the 1890s and died at his residence, Oakfield, Upperthorpe, on 31 July 1912. He was buried at Walkley Cemetery in the same grave as Elizabeth (who had died in 1890).  Perhaps William had provided capital for his son: he was certainly wealthy enough. His estate was proved at £7,788, with net personalty £273. One recorded bequest was £50 to St John’s Methodist Chapel in Crookesmoor Road.

In the Census (1891), Harrison Fisher was enumerated as a cutlery merchant’s clerk, apparently at Harrison Bros & Howson (information from Alastair Fisher, 2021). In 1898, after his start in Wellington Street, Harrison registered two ‘H F ’silver marks at the Sheffield Assay Office. In the Sheffield directory (1901), he was listed as an electro-plate manufacturer. It is likely that the firm was mostly involved in finishing processes, such as buffing. The early output included spoons, forks, desserts, and fish eaters. Harrison was joined in partnership (probably in 1902) by Samuel Lawton (1867-1950). In 1891, Lawton had married Harrison’s sister, Annie, at the Wesleyan Chapel in Carver Street.  Lawton was a table knife manager, who had worked for R. F. Mosley as a director. Harrison and Samuel began trading as Harrison Fisher & Co.

In 1903, Harrison Fisher (aged 31) married Ethel Violet Leapmann (1883-1972), aged 20, at St Augustine’s Church, Highbury, London. She was the youngest daughter of Moses Leapmann, a silver and electro-plate dealer, of Highbury, London. Harrison and Ethel had two sons:  William Harrison Fisher (1905-1997) and Geoffrey Walter Samuel Fisher (1907-1928). William, known as ‘Billy’, later joined the business; Geoffrey died in south Manchester on 13 May 1928, aged only 21. His father also suffered an early death on 30 November 1907 at his residence, Riverdene, Riverdale Road. He was aged 36. His burial was at Christ Church at Fulwood, where his gravestone also commemorates his son.  Ethel was left to raise two young children: however, Harrison had left a substantial estate of £10,930 (well over £1m at current prices). 

The firm continued to be managed by Samuel Lawton.  In 1911, Ethel married Samuel Marsden Inman (1882-1951), who was the son of a crucible steel melter. He became joint managing-director under Lawton’s chairmanship. No business records have survived for the firm, so its its early years are difficult to chart. Spoons and forks were evidently staple lines, though soon table knives (with xylonite handles) were produced. The firm also began to occupy additional workshops in Trafalgar Street. Newspaper advertisements for new recruits offered jobs for ‘insiders’ and ‘roughers’ for spoons and forks; grinders and buffers for table knives; and silversmiths for cruets. Harrison Fisher & Co was sufficiently prominent for one newspaper correspondent to provide a factory ‘tour’ (Sheffield Weekly News, 22 October 1915).  At this time, the firm was busy with War Office orders for cooks’ and butchers’ knives, table knives, and forks and spoons (Sheffield Daily Telegraph, 18 October 1915).  Machinery was used to supply this demand. Once the firm advertised for a ‘woman or strong girl’ to operate a table-blade grinding machine (Sheffield Daily Telegraph, 13 January 1917).

After the War, Harrison Fisher & Co exploited the opportunities presented by stainless steel. In one advertisement, it offered case cutlery of every description, with stainless knives a special feature (Daily News, 5 May 1921).  These knives had a high finish, which the firm claimed could be used as a standardised hallmark of quality. The firm’s table knives in the 1920s were marked ‘Rustless Steel’ or the ubiquitous ‘Firth’s Stainless’. For the mass market, in the early 1920s Harrison Fisher produced spoons and forks in ‘NEWLOY’, a cheap metal ‘intermediate’ between high-grade nickel-silver and good electro-plate. ‘GALLIMORE’S STAINLESS’, another nickel alloy (which had stainless properties supposedly exceeding those of stainless steel), was also used for flatware. The company pitched its products as particularly suitable for the ironmonger and jeweller. In the 1920s, the firm had a London office at Bartlett’s Buildings, Holborn.

An engraving of Trafalgar Works appeared in The Daily News, 5 May 1921.  The artist’s expansive depiction of two-storey buildings and courtyards stretching along Wellington Street bore little relation to its cramped layout. This soon necessitated a search for better premises. Across the road from Harrison Fisher & Co (on the opposite corner of Trafalgar Street) was Trafalgar Grinding Wheel of tool manufacturer Robert Sorby & Sons Ltd. Sorby’s premises became known as Kangaroo Works. Further up Trafalgar Street was Portland Works, later associated with Sorby, and (to confuse matters further) another Trafalgar Works, housing various trades. In 1925, Harrison Fisher & Co acquired Kangaroo Works. Their growing business ‘necessitated the increased accommodation’, explained The Sheffield Daily Telegraph, 7 March 1925, without elaboration. The next year, the Wellington Street site was vacated. Within a few years, Harrison Fisher had occupied the whole section of buildings further up the street from Sorby’s. The directors retained the name Trafalgar Works for the three-storey complex of workshops.

An explosion and fire at the factory – caused predictably by celluloid in a ground floor storeroom – was reported in The Sheffield Daily Telegraph, 19 November 1925.  Above the storeroom were two floors of buffing shops. The factory workforce was estimated at 200. In 1926, Harrison Fisher & Co became a private limited company, with £17,500 capital (5,500 ordinary shares and 12,000 preference shares). The directors were Ethel Violet Inman, Samuel Lawton (chairman), and Samuel M. Inman (Sheffield Daily Telegraph, 31 December 1926).  William Harrison Fisher, who had joined the firm in 1923 (aged 18), was company secretary. In the late 1920s, two additional directors were recruited: Herbert Skerritt (1866-1950), a traveller, and Herbert Bromley (1882-1958), a manager. 

Harrison Fisher’s first trade mark (registered before 1918) was a picture of a Gladstone bag, initialled ‘H. F. & Co’. During the interwar period, this was dropped in favour of a picture of Lord Nelson and the word ‘TRAFALGAR’. Harrison Fisher took over two smaller companies: Thomas Frost & Co Ltd (a table blade forger); and A. Milns & Co (which manufactured electro-plate and pewter). In 1929, Harrison Fisher also acquired John Sanderson, a struggling cutlery manufacturer in Westfield Terrace.  John Sanderson & Son (1929) Ltd was registered at 57 Trafalgar Street, with £200 capital. Lawton and Inman were the directors; W. H. Fisher was secretary. In 1930, Harrison Fisher decided to take advantage of a government tariff on cutlery imports by marketing ‘penny’ safety razor blades, which were later produced on its own automatic machines.  The ‘Trafalgar Razor Blade’ was advertised with the stolid slogan: ‘Clear the Face as Nelson Cleared the Seas’.

Lawton retired in 1936. Thereafter control was shared between the Fisher and Inman families. Samuel M. Inman’s youngest son, Roger (1915-2013), had joined the firm in 1931. William H. Fisher also became a director during the 1930s.  After military service during the War, Roger Inman became joint managing-director. His father died on 29 November 1951, leaving £16,506.  Lawton had died at Bamford, Derbyshire, on 6 June 1950, leaving £17,819. 

In 1946, the electro-plate and pewter ware side of the business was sold to Culf & Kay.  The focus remained on table cutlery and silverware, though silver fruit knives and pocket knives were also marketed. John Sanderson’s continued to be used as a stand-alone name. Much of the firm’s output was sold to wholesalers and retailers and Harrison Fisher only advertised occasionally. Consequently, its name was less well known to the public than its bigger competitors in the silverware trade in Sheffield. This began to change in 1967, when the company was faced with the compulsory purchase of the properties on Trafalgar Street by Sheffield Corporation, as part of a redevelopment plan. Harrison Fisher found a new home at the Milton Street factory of Taylor's Eye Witness Ltd (formerly Needham, Veall & Tyzack). The factory was enlarged to house both companies. This led in 1975 to the friendly takeover of Taylor’s Eye Witness, which was achieved without redundancies and launched a period of steady growth. 

The influx of cut-price cutlery from the Far East was countered by a shift towards the most profitable sectors of the market – particularly kitchen cutlery and gadgets – and a willingness to innovate.  After the mid-1960s, the manufacture began of ‘Kitchen Devils’, which had been designed by London entrepreneur Harold Bearston.   The latter had difficulty in persuading cutlers to produce his new style of cooks’ and kitchen knives.  Taylor’s Eye Witness (aka Harrison Fisher) agreed to supply ‘Kitchen Devils’ to Bearston’s exacting standards.  The Sheffield firm also devised a revolutionary method of moulding plastic handles onto the blade and then linishing away a section so that the tang was exposed  (thus giving the handles of Kitchen Devils a distinctive quality look and feel).  Eye Witness Works also manufactured ‘Alveston’ cutlery for J. & J. Wiggin in the West Midlands.  This popular range had been designed by the noted silversmith and Robert Welch (1929-2000).  Eventually, the Sheffield directors and Welch were introduced.  Welch recalled that it was ‘inevitable that one day Harold Bearston and I should collaborate on a new design programme: this happened in 1979 at the instigation of Roger Inman … Having captured the middle market for kitchen knives in England, it seemed that something should be done about the quality end of this huge business, dominated by foreign manufacturers’ (Robert Welch, 1985¹).   The result was Welch’s successful design of Kitchen Devils ‘Professional’ Knives

To keep such knives sharp, Harrison Fisher introduced the Chantry Knife Sharpener. This had originally been patented in 1927 by Sheffielder James Chantry, who had been a partner in British Stainless Products Ltd. In 1938, Chantry founded Archant Ltd to exploit his idea, which instead of a traditional single sharpening steel relied upon a tabletop device with two small spring-loaded steels. Harrison Fisher & Co acquired Archant and asked Welch to redesign the sharpener in a variety of modern styles. It soon became a fixture in many kitchens. 

Welch worked closely with the Sheffield firm on other products, such as ‘Concord’ kitchen scissors. These were made after 1968 by Harrison Fisher and sold under the Taylor’s Eye Witness brand. The scissors were ergonomically-designed in chrome-plated carbon steel, with the handle sections stove-enamelled and produced in various colours. Welch paid tribute to the ‘wise management of Roger Inman and William Fisher who steadfastly pursued a policy of great diversification and wide variety of products’ (Hand and Machine, 1985).

In 1986, Harrison Fisher & Co’s issued capital was £50,000 and it had 205 workers. Pre-tax profit was about £50,000. In 1988, the assets and name of Walton Bros were acquired and the name of the latter was changed to The Kitchen Cutlery Co Ltd.  In the early 1990s, Harrison Fisher was probably the only surviving example of the type of firm which had flourished in nineteenth-century Sheffield – one which marketed a full range of cutlery.  It remained family-owned, with Roger Inman as chairman. Alastair Fisher (W. H. Fisher’s eldest son) was in charge of sales and marketing and Christopher Inman (Roger’s eldest son) directed factory production. However, William H. Fisher died in 1997, aged 91.  According to his son: ‘He devoted his whole life to the company … [and] … he and his half brother Roger Inman were responsible for seeing the company through some difficult times’ (communication from Alastair Fisher, 2021).  Roger Inman died at his home at Ranmoor on 3 March 2013, aged 97.

In 2007, Harrison Fisher & Co Ltd had been renamed Taylor's Eye Witness Ltd.  Alastair Fisher and Christopher Inman became co-managing directors of this third generation family business.  It had outlived almost all its competitors.  As Alastair explained: ‘We make a good product.  We’ve got a diverse range of customers.  We are financially conservative and never bet the firm on one deal.  We have continued to innovate.  We’ve survived the ups and downs.  We’re still here’(Guardian, 15 March 2007).  The company still spent heavily on design to maintain its reputation as an independent brand on the high street.   But the firm was increasingly constrained by its Grade II-listed factory.  Robert Welch had once delighted in the Milton Street factory – ‘a perfect and harmonious combination of the old and the new … which exude a spirit of fine craftsmanship’ (Welch, 1985¹).   But the Victorian rabbit-warren of workshops and stone stairs became increasingly inappropriate as the workforce declined (from about 90 in 2005 to about 50 in 2015) and the company focus switched from manufacturing to importing, packaging, and distribution.  In 2016, Taylor’s Eye Witness agreed with the City Council to swap its historic factory for a new industrial unit at 5 Parkway Close, off Sheffield Parkway.   The move was completed in 2018.

Nothing remains of Trafalgar Grinding Wheel (bulldozed in the 1980s) or Trafalgar Works and Kangaroo Works (demolished at the end of 2007). Trafalgar Street and Wellington Street have been redeveloped, mostly as student accommodation. The old factory buildings, though, have been preserved in a valuable photographic record and site-history assembled by Lucy Dawson and Oliver Jessop (Trafalgar Works, Trafalgar Street, Sheffield South Yorkshire, ARCUS Report, September 2011). At Milton Street, Eye Witness Works is being transformed into apartments and town houses. 

^1. Welch, Robert, Hand and Machine (1985)