© SCC Picture Sheffield [u10404] - Brianza Works
The Sheffield directory (1879) had an advertisement for Kittel Bros. It was a cutlery and tool merchant, selling table and pocket cutlery, razors and edge tools from Brianza Works, Bessemer Road, Attercliffe. It had a Hamburg office. The prime mover was Ernst Theodor August Kittel, who was a merchant based at Hamburg in Germany. He operated Kittel Bros with a partner, Max Julius Hass. The other Kittel brother has not been identified. The firm became bankrupt in 1880 with liabilities of £1,800, when the address was Portland Works, West Street, and Brianza Works, Westfield Terrace (Sheffield Independent, 13 November 1880). The striking corporate mark – a pair of spectacles, enclosing the letters ‘I’ ‘C’ – was later used by Jonas & Colver, a tool steel company in the same road, which also had German connections.
Ernst’s son, (by his wife, Sophie) was Theodor Bruno Kittel (c.1857-1923), who settled in Sheffield. He had been born at Eythra, near Leipzig. In the early 1880s, he launched Kittel, Downing & Wilisch as a steel, file, and general merchant at Arundel Street, Sheffield, and Birmingham. Hebert Downing, a partner, left in 1885 and the firm continued as Kittel, Wilisch & Co (the other partner was Gottfied Hugo Wilisch). Bruno Kittel was naturalised in 1889, when he described himself as a merchant and manufacturer and vice-consul of Denmark. Besides marketing steel, the partners also sold refractories (such as silica and ganister bricks) and had an office at Stella Works, Homburg, Germany. They parted in 1890. Kittel moved to Hampstead in London and died there at his home, Vane House, Green Hill, on 30 January 1923. He left £47,166.