Lilleyman trademark. Image courtesy of Geoff Tweedale.
Thomas Lilleyman, a manufacturer of cast scissors, was born in Worksop in about 1815. In the Census (1841), he was a scissors grinder, living in Spring Street, with his wife, Mary Ann. In 1845, he was listed as a scissors manufacturer in Suffolk Street; then in 1849 as a razor and table knife manufacturer in Pea Croft and Wadsley. Thereafter, he worked mostly around Pea Croft and operated for a time on his own account in Trinity Street (at the address of George Butler). He was also a furniture broker in Pinfold Street and operated a beer house. In 1859, when he was insolvent, he was a greengrocer in Edward Street. In 1869, he was fined for using light and unstamped weights. Thomas’s wife, Mary Ann, died in Pinfold Street in 1868; Thomas died on 13 January 1871, aged 56, and was buried in the General Cemetery.
Lilleyman’s son, Thomas George Lilleyman (1851-1920), continued to make cast steel scissors in Corn Hill Place. In 1881, he employed five men and two women. In 1887, he was listed as a maker of scissors and tailors’ shears in Solly Street. In the same directory, an advertisement appeared for Lilleyman, Sons & Co (established 1847), Hope Works, Furnace Hill, manufacturer of scissors, razors, knives and small tools. Alfred Lilleyman in Broad Lane was listed as a partner, but this may have been a misprint for Thomas’s other son, Albert Lilleyman (1847-1895?). After featuring in Industries of Sheffield (1888), with the mark ‘ICU’, Lilleyman & Sons disappeared, leaving only Thomas G. Lilleyman as a manufacturer of scissors, tailors’ shears, and tinman’s snips in Edward Street (where he sometimes kept a shop). He lived in Old Farm, King James Street. The trade marks were the word ‘MAN’, with a lily pictured above; and ‘FAITH’ (once used by Charles Lingard). Thomas G. Lilleyman died on 6 July 1920, aged 68, leaving £449. The Edward Street business was listed until the mid-1920s.
In 1936, his son, Thomas George Jun. (1883-1947), founded T.G. Lilleyman & Son Ltd, Faith Works, Club Mill Road, as a manufacturer of blanks for surgical forceps and scissors and later hip joints. The initial capital was £4,000. Thomas George’s brother, Ernest (1889-1959), later became managing director. The firm was dissolved in 2009.