Pyramid Works, Broomhall Street, 1897, Picture Sheffield [y07139] © SCC
This firm was listed in 1862 as a cutlery manufacturer at St Paul’s Works, Pinstone Street. The products included table cutlery, Bowie knives, spear and camp knives for South American and other foreign markets. The company mostly concentrated on table knives. The owners were Joseph Nixon, Broomhall, and Jabez Jephtha Winterbottom (b.1828), Upper Walkley. Jabez was an accountant and insurance agent; Joseph was the son of George Nixon and his wife, Ellen. The firm was managed by Harvey Nixon (1841-1914) – another son of George Nixon.
By 1870, Nixon & Winterbottom had moved into Pyramid Cutlery Works in Broomhall Street, opposite St Silas’ Church. The partners acquired the premises of a timber yard and converted it into a self-contained factory. The basement had grinding troughs; the ground floor had an engine house and four machines for ‘flying’ out blades; and the floor above accommodated glazing and buffing machinery (Sheffield Independent, 9 September 1871). Nixon & Winterbottom became one of the first firms to introduce machinery for mass production, having registered in 1870 a patent for machinery for piercing and drilling tangs and another in 1873 for rolling steel for the manufacture of knife blades. The firm’s advertisements in the 1870s announced cutlery made by ‘patent machinery’ on the ‘interchangeable’ system. This was an attempt to emulate the Americans, one of whom observed (Sheffield Independent, 13 October 1873):
Visiting the works of Nixon and Winterbottom, we found only Mr Nixon, a man whose enterprise would do credit to New England. He assured us that machinery might be used to advantage in Sheffield with English mechanics. In their manufactory they employ cutting presses, gang drills, shapers for knife handles, etc. In fact, they seem to be awake to the importance of mechanical improvements and believe that they manufacture as good cutlery as those using only hand-power.
The enterprise was launched successfully. In 1870, a works outing to Monsal Dale for upwards of fifty of its workpeople and friends ended with the traditional dinner, songs, and toasting to the owners. Harvey Nixon, in his response, referred to the ‘exceptional prosperity’ of the Pyramid Cutlery Works (Sheffield Independent, 16 August 1870). Nixon & Winterbottom employed 80 workers in 1871. However, in that year a serious fire damaged the factory, with the costs estimated at £1,500 (Sheffield Independent, 9 September 1871). The collapse of American orders hit trade in 1874, though other markets were found (Ironmonger 31 August, 1878). In 1881, the workforce was 59.
Jabez Winterbottom withdrew in 1885, but already another partner, Frank Richards (1853-1896), a clothier, had joined the firm. He lived in Kenwood Road. Joseph Nixon withdrew in 1892. He lived at Tapton Villa and died there on 20 November 1898, aged 73. He was buried in Fulwood and left £5,294. Harvey Nixon probably retired at the same time as his brother: he died in Hanover Square on 7 December 1914, leaving £1,824. Richards operated the company in the early 1890s, but he died in London, aged 43, on 27 October 1896, leaving £3.064. His grave was in unconsecrated ground in the General Cemetery. The assets of Pyramid Cutlery Co were bought by Needham, Veall & Tyzack, which converted the firm to a limited liability company and continued to use the Nixon & Winterbottom name and mark – ‘NW’ and a picture of pyramids (originally used by George Nixon).