The Stringer family was active since at least 1774, when Joseph and Charles Stringer were listed in Wadsley.  Charles used the mark ‘C SER’;  Joseph’s mark included the letters ‘S’ and ‘W’.   They made ‘spotted’ knives, which had handles of horn burned to look like expensive tortoiseshell.  As Leader (1905)¹ noted, these knives became very popular and led to ‘an extensive industry in the villages’.  In subsequent directories, various Stringers continued to be listed in Wadsley, Dungworth, or Fulwood.   The family made knives for Oborne & Gunning.

S. & G. Stringer appeared in 1825 as manufacturers of Spanish knives (daggers) and pocket knives in Upper Hallam.  The partners were George Stringer and Samuel Stringer, who may have been brothers.   They continued to produce knives at Nether Green into the 1830s.  George died on 13 February 1839, aged 70;  Samuel on 26 August 1847, aged 74.   Their remains lie in Ecclesall churchyard.  Stringer’s mark, featuring a reversed ‘C’ and number ‘9’, apparently passed to Samuel Hancock & Son.  When Hancock’s was acquired by Hale Bros, a variant of that Stringer mark (with the letter ‘D’) was amongst the assets.   This explains why the name ‘S. & G. Stringer’, maker of pen and pocket knives, appeared in directories at Moorfield Works, Snow Lane until the 1950s.

^1. Leader, R E, Sheffield in the Eighteenth Century (Sheffield, 2nd edn, 1905)