Thomas Shemeld & Son – maker of ‘Plain & Ornamental Razors’ in Prince Street, Moor – advertised in 1879. The owner was razor smith Thomas Shemeld (1829-1915). He was born on 4 October 1829, the son of Edward (a razor smith) and Jane. Thomas had married Miss Ann Smith in 1849, but they apparently separated and by 1861 Thomas was living with Mary Ludlam. They married in 1871, when Ann died. His sons – Thomas William (c.1857-1914), Maurice (1866-1935), and Joseph Rodgers Shemeld (1879-1938) – were born to Mary. In 1881, Thomas employed three men and two boys. By 1884, he was using his youngest son’s name to trade as Joseph Rodgers Shemeld & Co, perhaps because of its echoes of Joseph Rodgers & Sons. The trade marks were ‘1829’ (claimed as the founding date, which was also Thomas’s year of birth) and ‘ROCKET’. 

Thomas was using the name Shemeld & Co by the 1890s, when he was at Livingstone Razor Works, Carver Street. In 1891, he registered the ‘ECHO’ mark of James Barlow & Sons. A photograph of Livingstone Works, apparently taken in 1897, shows a group of six aproned men and boys. The sign above has ‘Shemeld & Co, Razor Makers and Cutlers, Specialities in Carvers and Children’s Cutlery’. In 1908, when Thomas was 77 (and his wife 70), he was awarded a pension by the Royal Metal Trades Pension Society, as a razor manufacturer, ‘now past work’ (Sheffield Independent, 30 January 1908). The Shemeld workshops moved to Aberdeen Works in Division Street (see Francis Howard). Thomas William Shemeld & Son became the ‘successor’ at Division Street. The ‘son’ was Harold Ward Shemeld (1889-1948). However,Thomas William died in 1914 (aged 57) and was buried on 21 May at Walkley cemetery. 

Thomas Shemeld died at his home at Neill Road on 9 February 1915, aged 85, and was buried at Walkley. According to the Sheffield directory (1919), T. Shemeld & Sons was at Albany Works, Radford Street.  Stainless knives marked ‘T. Shemeld & Sons’ have survived. But the relationship of this firm to the earlier Shemeld enterprises is unclear. It did not appear in directories after 1919 and no information has been found on its owners.