This firm was registered as a private limited company in 1922, with £2,000 capital.  It acquired the business of B. Davison & Co at Debesco Works, Eyre Street/Howard Street.  The managing director was M. Freedman (64 Broomgrove Road); and Mrs M. Rose (51 Glenmore Road, Belsize Park, London) was co-director.  No other details have been found. However, the company was soon directed by Isidore (‘Issy’) Lewis (1904-1983).  His early life, too, is somewhat obscure. The family, though, was Jewish. Isidore’s father, Hyman (1876-1945), had been born at Hull and had moved to Sheffield.  In 1901, Hyman was living with his wife, Nellie, at Gibraltar Street, where he was a draper.  Isidore was born at Scarborough on 3 June 1904.  He was educated at the Central Secondary School, Sheffield, and the London School of Economics.  In 1923, he became managing director of Lewis, Rose & Co Ltd.

No business records have survived for Lewis, Rose & Co.  The firm advertised sparingly and generated few catalogues.  Isidore Lewis never seems to have given interviews.  As with other Jewish-owned cutlery companies in Sheffield, the history can only be pieced together from scattered sources.  The firm developed as a manufacturer of electro-plate, spoons and forks, table cutlery, and hotel and restaurant ware.  The original business probably employed no more than a score or so workers and likely factored its goods. In about 1930, the firm moved into Mappin Buildings, Norfolk Street.  This was formerly Mappin & Webb’s Royal Works, which had been converted into offices.  In 1932, Lewis, Rose & Co exhibited at the British Industries Fair at Olympia in London.  A reporter commented:

They specialise in popular cutlery cabinets and small canteens, many specimens of which are on view.  Next come cased goods … and numerous fancy cardboard display boxes in jazz and futurist designs.  The “Britannia” is a substantial cabinet of exclusive design and contains 76 pieces of cutlery; the whole (including the cabinet) is stated to be “entirely British”.  Certainly to be greatly admired and to make a great appeal to a limited class of buyers is a burr-walnut miniature cabinet … The contents, of stainless steel, ivory, sterling silver, etc., are all made by Lewis, Rose & Co, perfectly to a scale reduction which makes a carver shorter than a cheese knife (Sheffield Daily Telegraph, 22 February 1932).

The miniature case of cutlery was soon purchased by the Queen as a present for Princess Elizabeth – ‘gratifying recognition’ for the company, as the newspaper put it.  ‘The  firm’s connection for electro-plate, cased goods, and cutlery, all for the most part specialised designs, is stated to be expanding’ (Sheffield Daily Telegraph, 22 February 1932).  As trade improved, Lewis looked for a larger site for Debesco Works.  He found it at Bowling Green Street near Kelham Island, on a site bounded by South Parade and Ebenezer Place.  This was the location of Philip Ashberry & Sons, which had struggled in the early 1930s and was about to be re-organised.  In 1935, Ashberry’s planned to move from the site and Lewis, Rose was able to acquire the freehold land and premises.  ‘It is understood’, stated one newspaper, ‘that they [Lewis, Rose] have in mind something along the line of Viners’ new factory’ (Sheffield Daily Independent, 18 May 1935).  In 1936, Lewis, Rose & Co demolished Ashberry’s old factory and built a new Debesco Works.

Lewis now had a partner.  This was David Brown (1909-1984), who had been born at Leicester into a Jewish immigrant family from Russia.  His mother was from Sheffield, to where David moved in 1915.  After graduating from Sheffield University with a physics degree in 1931, he worked briefly at Jessop’s, the steel makers.  He had known Issy Lewis since their schooldays at Central Secondary School – a relationship which became closer in 1934 when Lewis married Sarah (Sally) Brody.  The Brody and Brown families lived virtually next door to each other on Ecclesall Road and they remained intertwined all their lives.  In the Register of England & Wales (1939), David Brown stated his occupation as ‘manager in cutlery factory (executive side)’. He found his metier as the company’s sales director.  In the words of his daughter, Judy Simons (who has written a family history, 2021)¹, he had a gift for client relations, underpinned by his previous experience with stainless steel manufacture.  ‘Issy Lewis had the business acumen and financial skills, but could be forthright in manner and thus less client-facing’ (Simons, personal communication to author, 2022).  Lewis was also heavily involved in civic work.  He was a staunch member of the Labour Party and the Fabian Society; and was elected to the City Council in 1946, where for many years he was chair of the Sheffield City Council Finance Committee

In 1946, the partners registered Lewis & Brown Exports Ltd in Sheffield and in London.  They also had a New York office on Lexington Avenue.  During the 1950s Brown travelled widely for the firm and led the drive into overseas markets in Europe, the USA, Africa, South Africa, Asia, Australia and New Zealand.  To bolster the firm’s presence in these markets, in 1952 Lewis acquired the ‘Philip Ashberry’ name and marks, which had passed to George Butler & Co.  Thus Ashberry came ‘home’ to Bowling Green Street.  It provided Lewis, Rose with something it had lacked: a relatively well-known and ‘ancient’ brand name.  Goods and advertisements were now branded ‘Ashberry of Sheffield’, and the Lewis, Rose name took second place.  The firm continued to concentrate on table cutlery, flatware, and table holloware.  According to a profile in Quality (March 1957)²: ‘The main roots of the business have been in supplying Australia and New Zealand; and in the latter market, Ashberry is still one of the most prominent brands’.  Another mark on Lewis, Rose’s stainless table cutlery was ‘LARKO’ [L.R. & Co Ltd], with a picture of wings.

In 1963, Isidore Lewis became Sheffield’s first Jewish Lord Mayor.  On such occasions, David Brown ‘effectively ran the business, and was always its external face’ (Simons, 2022).   In 1969, Lewis retired from Lewis, Rose & Co Ltd.  In that year, the Sheffield saw makers Spear & Jackson acquired Lewis, Rose/Ashberry as a cutlery subsidiary.  This signalled a shift from high-value table cutlery towards cheaper, mass produced goods.  Unhappy at the direction the company was taking, Brown retired too.  Spear & Jackson (Ashberry) Ltd soon disappeared under a deluge of stainless cutlery from the Far East.  In 1977, the Ashberry name was acquired by a French cutlery group, which formed Ashberry & Degrenne Ltd (Quality, January/February 1977)³.  The former Debesco Works on Bowling Green Street was occupied for a time by Parkin Silversmiths.  The carved name ‘Ashberry’ can still be seen in the stonework above one of the doors.  Isidore Lewis died in Sheffield on 1 October 1983, aged 79, leaving £202,458.  David Brown, of Abbey Lane, died less than a year later on 20 March 1984.  Their graves are at Ecclesfield Jewish Cemetery.

1 Judy Simons, The Northern Line: The History of a Provincial Jewish family (Kibworth Beauchamp, 2021)

² Sheffield Chamber of Commerce, Quality of Sheffield (1957)

³ Sheffield Chamber of Commerce, Quality of Sheffield (1977)