George Palmerston Preston (1865-1946) was born at Sheffield, the son of Levi Preston (a schoolmaster) and his wife, Phillis.  In the Census (1881), Levi was unemployed; George was a fifteen-year-old writer.  By 1888, George was a tool merchant. In that year, he married at Leeds a schoolmistress, Lucy Noble, who was the only daughter of an ironmonger. In 1891, George and Lucy were living at Ellesmere Road, Brightside; George’s father (who had retired) and mother lived next door.  By 1901, George P. Preston was a tool dealer on his own account. He lived in Doncaster, where he opened an office at 37 Station Road. By the First World, his main office was at Wellington Street, Sheffield.  He had been joined by his sons: Ernest Arthur (1892-1965) and George Noble (1893-1979).

Preston’s specialised in retailing woodworking tools, particularly saws and other joiners’ tools.  Evidently, it also sold cutlery. George Preston often insisted on his own name appearing on the tools, instead of the manufacturer, no matter how distinguished. In the 1939 Register, George Palmerston was a ‘shopkeeper. Joiners’ and engineers’ tools’, who resided at Abney, near Hathersage. His son, Ernest, lived at home and was an assistant in the shop. George Noble lived in Sheffield at Southgrove Road and in 1939 was a ‘Director of Ltd Company. Saw and tools. Travelling’.  During the Second World War, Preston’s relocated to 105 Devonshire Street. George Palmerston Preston, of 50 Southgrove Road, died on 20 April 1946, aged 80. He left £10,965.  His widow, Lucy, outlived him until 1950, when she was 90. Both are buried at Abbey Lane Cemetery.

His sons continued the Devonshire Street business.  The firm was regarded as one of the two main tool dealers in Sheffield (the other was J. B. Hindley). Sheffield edge tool maker Ashley Iles initially sold tools through Preston’s. Iles recalled that George Preston – this was presumably George Noble – was a ‘very tall, gaunt man with a shock of grey hair and a surly, overbearing attitude’. The shop counter was run by Betty, a ‘masterpiece of femininity’, who organised a staff of three men.  According to Iles: ‘When I collected my orders on Saturday morning, the shop was full of patternmakers, joiners and other woodworking salesmen. It proved a formidable shop to sell to … In the shop was a notice reading: We shoot every second salesman and the first has just left’ (Iles, Memories of a Sheffield Tool Maker, 1993).

Ernest Arthur Preston, 50 Southgrove Road, died on 23 October 1965, leaving £5,046. His burial was at Abbey Lane. The firm was wound up in 1969, when its director was J. E. Connor. Ernest’s brother, George, of Tullibardine Road, died on 7 December 1979. His estate was valued at £23,145.