Needham, Veall & Tyzack &ndas...">
After the First World War, Walter Tyzack – the director of Needham, Veall & Tyzack – tried to encourage firms to rationalise. He failed to interest Wostenholm’s in a joint-venture, but in 1919 agreed a merger between his own firm and Joseph Elliot (Hollis Croft), Lockwood Bros (Spital Hill), Nixon & Winterbottom (Pond Street), Southern & Richardson (Doncaster Street), and Thomas Turner (Suffolk Road). These firms were under a holding company known as Sheffield Cutlery Manufacturers Ltd, which was registered in 1919 with an initial capital of £100. This was soon increased to £350,000 (250,000 £1 ordinary shares and 100,000 £1 preference shares). The head office was at Eye Witness Works. According to its prospectus, the company planned to ‘take full advantage of the phenomenal demand for Cutlery the world over … by modernizing the present factories or erecting new ones in order to co-ordinate the processes of manufacture and by the introduction of more modern plant and machinery with a view to mass production, coupled with improved conditions of labour and economy’.
The combine was soon in trouble. In 1922, the decision to pass the interim dividends caused ‘considerable surprise’ amongst shareholders (Sheffield Daily Telegraph, 20 September 1922). Two years later, capital was reduced from £350,000 to £240,000. On 1925, no dividends were paid on the preference shares. J. G. Elliott stepped down as chairman. The group was said to employ 1,200 workers (Empire Mail, 27 February 1927). However, one director’s report in 1928 remarked ruefully on how ‘managers and deputy managers multiplied in the atmosphere of 1919 finance’. W. C. Veall continued to beat the drum of rationalisation (Sheffield Daily Telegraph, 14 September 1929). But in 1931, the depression and bad management killed off Sheffield Cutlery Manufacturers after a decade of losses. This left Needham, Veall & Tyzack (which now owned Southern & Richardson) and Joseph Elliot to go their own way.