The Cutlers - The Company Today

The Archivist\\'s Report

ARCHIVIST’S REPORT

The Company’s collections continue to receive a number of gifts from people associated with the Company and from members of the public, typically cutlery and books. 

There has been some repair work carried out on several of the silver candelabra, where the arms were working loose, and loans of a small number of items from the silver collection continue to be made to the Millennium Galleries.  . 

The Joseph Rodgers’ Year Knife, which was started in 1821 with 1,821 blades in it and has had a blade added for every year since then, has been returned to the stewardship of the Hawley Collection Trust at Kelham Island Industrial Museum.  The Knife belongs to Stanley Tools (UK) and was made over to the Hawley Trust in the late 1990s for refurbishment prior to the addition of the 2000th blade, celebrating the millennium.  In order for it to be seen by members of the public, it was loaned to the Cutlers’ Company and placed in the Muniment Room in the Hall.  The Knife will now be display at Kelham Island.

Volunteers have continued to digitise a number of books from the Company archives, notably the Trade Mark registers from the late 19th century, and several Past Mistresses have been adding information to a collection of photographs of events at the Hall. 

The Hall has been the venue for two projects by Media Studies students from Sheffield Hallam University.  One group made a ten minute film – a mystery – where the Reception Room and stairs made an impressive location for the story.  The second was a virtual tour showing aspects of the main rooms and halls.

The website continues to attract a number of enquiries, mainly about family history, but with many queries relating to cutlery and silver repairs, purchasing Sheffield cutlery and tools and requests for tours.  The Company was involved in Sheffield’s ‘Galvanise’ festival in March, by offering tours of the Hall and a presentation by the Archivist on the history and role of the Cutlers’ Company.

Joan Unwin, Archivist