The Ironmonger (12 November 1887) noted that the ‘sounding clink of the brazier’s hammer has hardly ever been silent on any working day in [Roberts & Belk’s] Furnival Works since the early part of the present century’.  The lineage can be traced through Furniss, Poles & Turner, William Briggs, Roberts & Slater (see Joseph Slater), and Roberts & Briggs.  The ‘Roberts’ in these firms was Samuel Roberts, who had been born on 23 August 1807 in Highfield.  After a spell in Edinburgh, he became traveller for William Briggs at Furnival Works, Furnival Street, and later partner.

In 1863, when Briggs withdrew, Roberts was joined by Charles Belk (1840-1904).  He had been born in Sheffield in 1840, the son of William Benjamin Belk (1812-1841) and his wife, Frances (Fanny) née Greaves.  Charles’s father was an attorney in Pontefract, but in the 1830s William Benjamin began a career as a chemist and druggist in Fargate.  However, he died prematurely on 30 September 1841, aged 29.  His wife only outlived him until 1848, aged 36.  They were buried in Ecclesall.  His parents’ deaths meant that Charles Belk was in the care of a guardian.  This was the chemist and druggist John Webster, who was his father’s executor, friend, and former master (Austen, 1961¹).  Charles Belk was apprenticed to Francis Newton & Sons.

Roberts & Belk produced silver, electro-plate, and table cutlery.  In 1871, Furnival Works employed 84 men, 17 boys, 6 clerks, and 41 women (148 in total).  Samuel Roberts became a member of Town Council, an Alderman, and JP.  He retired in July 1879.  He died at his home Sharrow Mount, Psalter Lane, on 24 August 1885, the day after his 78th birthday.  He left £17,950 and was buried in Ecclesall.  Belk took over the business, with Edward Parkin (who had been associated with Roberts) as his partner.  Belk became a leading figure in the silver and electro-plate trades.  His firm employed a hundred workers in 1881.  He was Master Cutler in 1885, when the principal guest was Lord Randolph Churchill.  The Company’s history fascinated Belk and he was ‘for ever diving into its records and dragging from an almost forgotten past much that was of genuine interest, especially to those identified with the old industries of Hallamshire’ (Sheffield Daily Telegraph, 29 November 1904). He had a similar commitment to Sheffield quality and trade marking.  As an authority on Sheffield trade, Belk appeared before Parliamentary enquiries and also attended foreign conventions on trade marking (Unwin, 2007²).  ‘He was something more than a successful manufacturer’, noted one reporter, ‘in fact he had all the cultivated tastes of a successful English gentleman’.  His country house was Holmwood, near Beauchief Abbey.

Roberts & Belk used various silver marks – ‘SRCB’, ‘CB’, and ‘R&B’.  These were registered in Sheffield (1864, 1867, 1879, 1892) and London, where the firm had an office since about 1882.  Its best known trade mark was a Roman lamp.  ‘ROMNEY’ and ‘EBONEX’ were also registered.  In 1901 the firm became a private limited company with a capital of £25,000 and with Charles Belk and his son, Walter Patrick Belk (1872-1963), as directors.  Charles Belk, Holmwood, Silverhill, died on 28 November 1904, aged 64.  He left £54,178 and was buried in Ecclesall.  Walter continued to manage the Furnival Street business.  In 1961, he sold the firm to C. J. Vander, a London silversmith.  Walter P. Belk, Abbey Lodge, Hangingwater Road, died on 19 August 1963 (aged 91), leaving £94,563.  Hugh Norton Lister (d. 25 September 1967, aged 77) became manager of the company.  In 2007, Ecclesfield cutlery and holloware group Premier-Ware was the last owner of the Roberts & Belk brand, before that group’s closure.

^1. Austen, John, Historical Notes on Old Sheffield Chemists and Druggists (Sheffield, 1961)

^2. Unwin, Joan, ‘A Year in the Life of Charles Belk, Master Cutler 1885-1886’, THAS 24 (2007)