According to a company profile (Quality, March 1957), this scissors manufacturer was established in Bernard Lane in 1845.  Apparently, it displayed at the Great Exhibition (1851), though its name did not appear in reports of that event.  In 1851, George was a scissors grinder in Granville Street.  His first directory listing was in 1860, when he was a scissors manufacturer, glass, and china dealer in Granville Street.  In 1862, he was listed as an earthenware dealer.  In 1864, George Platts, scissors manufacturer, was based in Forge Lane, with his home in South Street, Park.  By 1871, George Platts & Son was at Bernard Works in Bernard Lane, with Arthur Stephen Platts (George’s son) as partner.  The firm employed thirteen workers in 1871; and a decade later nine men, three women, and three boys.  The style of the firm’s ornate hand-forged and hand-filed scissors – preserved as smoke prints in two old pattern books – can be seen in Rees (1995)¹.

By 1884, the business had moved to Bernard Works, Dacre Street, Park.  A. S. Platts, of Talbot Place, Park, died, aged 45, at Wadsley Lunatic Asylum on 3 April 1896.  He was buried in Ecclesall, leaving £281.  Two years later, the firm moved to Smith’s Works, Sidney Street; then in 1899 to Mary Street – the year when George Platts retired after 54 years running the business.  He died on 17 March 1909, aged 86, and was buried in Ecclesall.  He left £790 and was succeeded by his grandsons, Arthur Stephen Cavill (1873-1946) and Percival Wright Platts (1878-1959).  Whereas the output had once been hand-forged plain and fancy scissors, the company began producing industrial scissors and other types of cutlery.  In 1913, Platts acquired scissors-maker Longley & Hawksworth and its sailor brand.  Platts became a private limited company in 1920 (capital £5,000).  

A. S. Cavill died on 14 May 1946, leaving £5,455.  Platts’ at City Cutlery Works, Mary Street, remained a family firm under chairman Percival Wright Platts (grandson of the founder) and great-grandson Percival Douglas Platts (1917-2007).   Percival Wright died on 26 October 1959.  He was 81 and had joined the trade in 1899.  He left £8,766.  In 1961, the company moved to Montrose Works, Harwood Street.  In 1968, Joseph Stringer was acquired.  In 1970, a new factory was built at Maryport, employing 25 workers; and scissors-maker F. Cowan & Co and Heber E. Kellam (fancy leather goods) were acquired.  Platts was dissolved in 2007.

^1. Rees, Jane, ‘Two Pattern Books of George Platts & Son Ltd, Sheffield Scissors Makers’, Tools & Trades History Society Newsletter 50 (Autumn 1995)