© Ken Hawley Collection Trust - K.1110
The Thompsons were cutlery retailers in Dublin. Samuel Thompson was listed in a directory in 1820 as a cutler at Henry Street. By the late 1830s, Samuel Thompson & Son was a self-styled ‘King’s Cutler’ in the same street. By 1844, his son, William, had started business as a razor and surgical instrument maker at 18 Dame Street. Samuel placed advertisements denying any connection with William, which suggests the split was less than amicable. William died at 48 Dame Street on 22 January 1863. After the sale of his stock and goodwill, first R. B. Pim and then R. A. Walker claimed to be Wm. Thompson’s ‘successor’ at Dame Street. Meanwhile, O’Neill & Thompson, ‘State Cutlers to Her Majesty’, had appeared in 1856 at Henry Street (presumably as Samuel’s ‘successor’). George Frederick O’Neill, who may have been related to Samuel’s wife, Mary Ann, was the owner.
William’s brother, James, was a ‘manufacturing cutler’ at 9 Nassau Street, having started business in 1837. In 1864, James posted a ‘cutlery card’ that stated that he was the only survivor of the old-established family of Thompson, cutlers, and that he had inherited his brother’s stock and property (Irish Times, 27 February 1864). However, James died on 29 July 1864, aged 46, and was buried at Mount Jerome Cemetery. He left under £200. His widow, Sarah Louisa, continued the cutlery shop at 9 Nassau Street. In advertisements, she warned regularly against other ‘Thompson’ firms, causing ‘confusion and disappointment’ (Saunders’s News-Letter, 31 August 1867). These included R. A. Walker – who claimed to be Wm. Thompson’s successor at 18 Nassau Street – and O’Neill & Thompson, which had addresses at Henry Street and Nassau Street. Sometimes their newspaper advertisements appeared next to Sarah’s.
George F. O’Neill died in 1887. By the 1890s, Sarah operated the only ‘Thompson’ cutlery business in Nassau Street. Customers were invited to call at No. 9 to choose from a selection of razors, scissors, and table cutlery. ‘Get your Razors set properly at Thompsons. Scissors & Knives Ground at Thompsons. Table Cutlery done up at Thompsons. This is the old and original Thompsons. Established 1780’ (National Teacher & Irish Educational Journal, 15 April 1892). Sarah died on 24 February 1897, aged 81. Her burial was at Mount Jerome Cemetery, where a gravestone marks the family’s grave. She left effects of £560.
Before Sarah’s death, the shop was trading as Thompson & Son. It seems likely that the son was Henry Thompson (1857-1939), who had been born in Dublin and was described in the Census (1911) as a master cutler. He was a Methodist. He took over his mother’s cutlery shop at 9 Nassau Street, which later traded as H. Thompson & Son at 12 Nassau Street (possibly the same shop, with only the house number changed). Henry sold cased sets of carvers, dessert and fish sets, tea and coffee sets, scissors, sporting and pocket knives, and silver and electro-plated goods (Irish Times, 21 December 1909). Henry’s son, Harry (1892-1971), was also a cutler (presumably in the family business). In the 1920s, Thompson’s sold stainless table knives marked ‘H. Thompson, 12 Nassau Street, Dublin, Firth Stainless, Made in Sheffield’. Henry died at Ashgrove Lodge, Highfield Road, Rathgar, on 2 September 1939, leaving £302. He was buried at Mount Jerome Cemetery, where the family gravestone is inscribed with the name of his wife (Frances), his son, Harry, and the latter’s wife, Marie Louise.