Lees & Colley Keenerkut knife advertisement, 1932. Image courtesy of Geoff Tweedale
The directors of this cutlery firm were Albert Thomas Lees (1869-1945) and Geoffrey Alan Davies-Colley (1892-1964). Lees had been born in Sheffield, the son of Joseph (a railway spring painter) and his wife, Mary. Albert became a cutlery traveller. By 1925, he was a cutlery manufacturer based at 19 Eyre Street. Davies-Colley had been born in Burnage, Manchester, the son of Robert James (a secretary) and his wife, Anna.
In 1931, Lees & Colley was registered as a private company, with £3,000 capital, at 34 Eyre Street. The registered office was at Deansgate, Manchester (Sheffield Daily Telegraph, 28 March 1931). Davies-Colley was a ‘gentleman’ living at Nottingham. The firm specialised in stainless steel table cutlery, carvers, and butchers’ knives. In particular, the company planned to benefit from ‘certain existing inventions’ relating to the patented Keenerkut Knife, the rights of which were held by Nora E. Lees (Albert’s daughter). The Ironmonger, 23 May 1931, described the novelty of Keenerkut stainless cutlery:
‘The knives are made of Firth’s steel, and in the case of table knives, dessert and tea knives the blade is hollow-ground on the pile side, the grinding following the curve of the end to its point; carving knives are ground on the mark side. This gives the double advantage of a thin edge for making the cutting entry considerably deeper that the wedge-shaped blade of the average knife, and the increased ease with which the knife may be re-sharpened. Moreover the side opposite to the hollow-ground side is specially constructed by grinding so as to give extra rigidity’.
The Register of England & Wales (1939) enumerated Lees as a cutlery manager, living at Cowlishaw Road, Sheffield; Davies-Colley was an accountant clerk in Nottingham. Lees & Colley seems to have struggled after its founding. It was struck off the register in 1948. Lees had died in 1945. Davies-Colley died at Nottingham on 23 May 1964, leaving £4,581.