As related by Bill Winfield in Jenkins & McClarence (1989)¹, the Winfields were forgers, who specialised in the best qualities of butchers’ knives.   Bill and his brother Charles were the sons of a blade forger, who worked in Tenter Street.   Bill, who was born in about 1905, joined his father at the age of thirteen.  His first job was operating the hand bellows.   The father and his sons forged blades for leading makers, but especially for Petty in Garden Street, where the Winfields rented a forge.  The father died, aged 63, and Charles and Bill started a partnership during the Second World War.  They traded under their mother’s name, because of a legal dispute with Petty’s.   

In 1946, Bill decided to work on his own, after a sales trip to London resulted in a large order from Smithfield market for butchers’ knives.  He worked over the years in Tenter, Monmouth, Bowden, and Solly Streets.  Bill’s brother, Charles, died in 1987, aged 84.   Bill continued forging blades beyond the normal retirement age of 65, but had retired by the time he was interviewed by Jenkins & McClarence.   He told them: ‘as I think back, the more convinced I am that it was an outstanding job to be able to forge … It might seem boastful, but there’s nothing as skilled as manipulating steel into shape’.

^1. Jenkins, C, and McClarence, S, On the Knife Edge (Sheffield, 1989)