From William Fawcett's Scrapbook. © SCC Picture Sheffield (s09759)
When the Greaves family began building Sheaf Works in 1823, it was the first sign that great changes were underway in the Sheffield cutlery trade. A huge main block in Maltravers Street alongside the canal basin – built in the style of a country house– became the centrepiece of the first large-scale factory in the town. ‘One grand end was kept in view, namely that of centralizing on the spot all the various processes through which the iron must pass ... until fashioned into razor, penknife or other article of use’ (Hunter, 1875). Contemporary accounts described how the firm converted and melted steel at one end of the factory; at the other, tools and knives were dispatched around the world. It was probably not quite as self-contained as these descriptions imply, but there was no doubting the novelty of the factory and its cost (initially £30,000). ‘In its early days, Sheaf Works was thought a wonder, and many were the prophecies of the downfall of such daring recklessness’ (Sheffield Independent, 22 May 1869).
The founder was William Greaves (c.1752-1830), who was the son of Robert Greaves, a cutlery grinder in Stannington. William was apprenticed to Joseph Worrall, a cutler, and was granted his Freedom in 1776. In the following year, he married Ann Palfreyman (c.1752-1824). The couple had ten children, of whom two sons and five daughters survived. William Greaves specialised in razors and was listed in Burgess Street in 1787 (trade mark ‘GREAVES’). By 1797, he was reported to have had a ‘bit of a trade in Cheney Square’ [near St Paul’s Church] and apparently frequented a public house in Mulberry Street (Sheffield Independent, 25 January 1873). By 1801, his sons – Edward (c.1778-1846) and Richard (c.1780-1835) – had joined the firm, which became William Greaves & Sons. It then relocated to premises in Hollis Croft (later occupied by Joseph Elliot) and then to Division Street.
It was Sheffield’s burgeoning trade with America after 1815, which catapulted the company into prominence. William Stenton, a Sheffield merchant who traded in America, was recruited as a partner. That arrangement was dissolved in 1817, but Greaves’ transatlantic trade expanded. Joseph Hunter (1875) identified William Greaves as one of those Sheffield merchants, who made a fortune in the US trade by ‘prudential habits’ of restricting credit to customers and dealing in cash payments. American dollars paved the way for the removal of Greaves’ business from Division Street to Sheaf Works. Richard Greaves was credited by Hunter (1875) as the key architect of the scheme. After further expenditure of £20,000, the manufactory was completed in 1826, when the wheel of the steam engine in Sheaf Works made its first turn.
The location on the banks of the newly-opened Sheffield Canal was ideal for the export trade. By 1833, William Greaves & Sons were ‘American merchants’, with a New York office in Pearl Street, Manhattan, through which the firm shipped large quantities of table cutlery and cast steel razors. The latter, wedge-shaped and sturdy (like the ‘Lexington’ razor), were ‘always of the highest quality’ (Lummus, 19221). Bowie knives for the frontiersman were also marketed. ‘SHEAF WORKS’ was often stamped on these products, though Greaves’s attempt to register those words as a trade mark was rejected by the Company of Cutlers in 1835. Files, edge tools, railway springs, and crucible steel (converted and melted in the firm’s array of furnaces) stoked profits.
America made William Greaves possibly the richest Sheffield manufacturer at that time. When he died on 13 May 1830, aged 78, he apparently left his daughters £30,000 each. He was buried in the yard of Upper (Unitarian) Chapel, Norfolk Street. In 1831, the partnership between William and Edward was dissolved. Richard may have already retired. He died at Shire House, Ecclesfield, on 26 April 1835, aged 55, and was interred in the family tomb, Upper Chapel. New directors appeared. These included Thomas Blake, who had married a daughter of William Greaves; John Fawcett (d. 8 January 1848, aged 52); and John Bower Brown. The latter had been born on 1 August 1802 and had served his apprenticeship at the company. In 1836, Brown had married Mary Ann, the youngest daughter of William Greaves (Blake, 19992). He was also related to John Fawcett and William Fawcett, who was a partner in James Dixon. When Edward Greaves died on 6 October 1846, aged 68 (and was buried in Ecclesall), Brown became head of the firm. But ownership was becoming more widely dispersed. Other partners in the 1840s included Wilford Mettam (d. 6 June 1851, aged 38), Benjamin James Eyre, and William Taylor (d. 22 June 1862, aged 54).
In 1850, William Greaves & Sons was dissolved, the stock and machinery auctioned, and the remaining partners separated (Sheffield Independent, 11 May 1850). John B. Brown retired and took up law. He lived at Woodthorpe Hall, near Richmond, and died in Southport on 21 August 1876, aged 75. He left a fortune of £60,000 and was buried in the family vault at Handsworth Church. B. J. Eyre became Greaves’ ‘successor’ as a cutlery manufacturer, using part of Sheaf Works. Declining American sales meant that the factory was too big for one firm. The steel and tool side of Sheaf Works was acquired by Thomas Turton & Sons, which continued to stamp Greaves & Sons’ mark on its edge tools. However, the firm increasingly specialised in steel and railway springs, and the factory became known as Sheaf Works and Spring Works. Turton’s was later bought by Frederick T. Mappin. It continued in business until the 1980s.
William Greaves amassed a fortune in the days when newspapers rarely reported events in detail. Moreover, no business records have survived from Sheaf Works. But the Greaves family left a mark. William and his wife, Ann, are commemorated by a plaque (by sculptor Edwin Smith) in Upper Chapel, Norfolk Street; so, too, is Richard. Their tomb is the most prominent in the Chapel yard. Edward has a plaque inside All Saint’s Parish Church, Ecclesall. Parts of the factory survive, too. By 2007, the derelict main block of Sheaf Works – all that was left of the original manufactory – had been restored as Sheaf Quay. Intended as a pub complex, it later became home to a call centre. The block still dwarfs the canal basin.
1 Lummus, Henry T., ‘Old Sheffield Razors’, Antiques (December 1922)
2 Blake, George Greaves, A South Yorkshire Family of Type Founders (Sheffield, 1999)