A manufacturing silversmith and retailer, W. & G. Sissons traced its origins to Roberts, Cadman & Co.  After various changes of partnership by 1826 (when it was known as S. Roberts, Smith & Co) the firm included William Sissons (1803-1878).   He had attended a Boys’ Charity School in Sheffield and had been brought to the attention of Samuel Roberts, who in 1816 gave him a warehouse job in Eyre Street.  After 1848 (when Roberts retired), partners Evan Smith and William Sissons began trading as Smith, Sissons & Co.  This was dissolved in 1858, when Smith retired.  William Sissons and his sons – William Sissons Jun. (1831-1893) and George Sissons (1836-1891) – took control.  

William Sen. had retired by 1861, when in the Census he was enumerated as the owner of land and houses.  W. & G. Sissons was then formed.  In 1871, the firm employed 50 hands.   In 1881, it moved from Eyre Street to Regency House, a factory in St Mary’s Road, and registered a silver mark from that address in 1890.  Its trade mark on silverware was a bell.  The workforce was 30 in 1881, which provided the family with a comfortable lifestyle: William Sen. and George (a bachelor) lived in Broomhall Road; and William Jun. built Brincliffe House in Brincliffe Edge Road.   William Sissons Sen. died at his residence in Broomhall Park on 18 September 1878, aged 75, leaving under £25,000.  His passing and funeral at the General Cemetery were well publicised in the press, partly because of his prominence as a Baptist at Townhead Street Chapel (Sheffield Independent, 19, 23, 30 September 1878).  His sons died in the early 1890s, after prosperous careers.  George on 29 June 1891, aged 55, leaving £16,440; William Jun. on 29 September 1893, aged 62, leaving £20,203.  Like their father, their remains lie in unconsecrated graves in the General Cemetery.

In the late nineteenth century, Walter Sissons (the son of William Jun.) directed the business.  In the heyday of the silver trade before the First World War, the company had London outlets in Southampton Street, the Strand, and then in Charterhouse Street, Holborn Circus.  In the interwar years, the business became indebted to the banks (Timmins, 1984¹).  In the 1930s, it shifted its output to monel metal (nickel-copper) and kitchen sinks.  Walter Sissons died on 5 January 1941, aged 83, and was buried in Ecclesall churchyard (where the family has an imposing monument).  He left £15,860.  W. & G. Sissons Ltd was formed in 1941 and capitalised at £5,000.  After 1943, the silversmith side of the business was continued as Bell Reproductions Ltd, but this subsidiary was later closed.   After the war, a factory at Calver Mill, near Bakewell, was occupied to manufacture stainless steel sinks.  In 1970, the St Mary’s factory was sold and by 1978 kitchen equipment manufacture was started in Chesterfield.  When Harold Gordon Sissons died in 1975, aged 76, he was the last family member in the company.  In 2002, the company operated as Franke Sissons (part of a Swiss group) from Chesterfield.  In 2009, it celebrated its 225-year anniversary as the UK’s leading manufacturer of stainless steel sinks.

^1. Timmins, Geoffrey, Workers in Metal Since 1784: A History of  W & G Sissons Ltd (Sheffield, 1984)