SHEFFIELD STEEL

Evening Post, Volume CVII, Issue 22, 26 January 1924, Page 16

SHEFFIELD STEEL

HISTOEY OP ITS REPUTATON.

When Sheffield held its .Cutlers' Feast, on 25th October,; remarks the London

'■ Daily Telegraph," it was celebrating one of the oldest of local trade marks. The name of Sheffield is known all round the world as a warranty. Other of'our manufacturing towns, perhaps, may claim for their goods' an equal renown. But howmany of them had established their repute when Chaucer's pilgrims rode to Canterbury? Of-the miller of Trumpington it is recorded by the reeve that " A Sheffield thwitel baar he in his hose." In the fourteenth century the wares of the cutlers of Sheffield were already sought by all knowing men. We are not bound to believe, as some traditions tell, that they were at work when the Romans ruled, but certainly iron was smelted thereabouts in Norman times. That Richard Crookback was beaten at Bosworth was, doubtless,' due to the excellence of the arrows supplied by Sheffield to Richmond's archers In the days of Queen Elizabeth, the Earl of Shrewsbury, who was lord of the manor presented a case of " Hallamshire whittles " to Lord Burleigh. The whittle and the thwitel are, of course,^one and the same, a large knife. It is said that the craft of, the Sheffield artisans was improved by the teaching of Flemish refugees, who had been driven from their homes by the persecution of Alva. The smiths of Flanders were of ancient fame. There was certainly a great advance in skill in . the seventeenth century. The Cutler's Company was established id 1624. In less than a century Sheffield was supplying not only whittles, but the most delicate surgical knives and all mannerof steel work. There is no need to continue the story. Everyone knows that the expansion of industry in the last two centuries brought to Sheffield the manufacture of heavy steel on a scale undreamed of by. the «arly cutlers What is too often fogotten is the "long evolution of the local craft. We speak o* the industrial revolution as though the centralisation and localisation of trades in towns, this place making steel goods that woollen, the other leather, were an invitation of yesterday. But some of, these localisations are almost as old as the English nation.' It is easy to understand how Sheffield came to be a cutlers town. Ironstone was abundant hard by there were woods to smelt it Si ffi ?J"V7, hen the wood be §an t0 fail bherheld folk, more forunate than the old Sussex ironmasters, found coal under their feet. In the days before the steam engine, five rivers provided water-power. ihen, now, and always," mountains" of mill-stone grit were reldy to furnish grindstones. But w e shall be wise if we give credit also the inherited expenenc^ and skilUof many generations. Acquired .quality of mind may or may not be. heritable, but it is certain that craftsmen do not suddenly arise out oi » district with no industrial traditions. The place our nation has taken as one ot the great manufacturing communities ot the world has been won not only b y advantages.of situation and resources but by centuries of training