History.

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               The Old Cutlery Forge -  c.   1900.                         Melting and Casting Stainless Steel.   c. 1998.

Sheffield grew on seven hills, divided by wooded valleys. The surroundings helped the City to become the steel capital of Britain. The hills gave iron ore, the woods provided charcoal, and the rivers powered the mills. Gritstone from the nearby  moors was used to make the grinding wheels. But it was the discovery of coal locally, and the invention by Benjamin Huntsman (1704 - 1776 ), for making steel with a uniform quality that revolutionised industry in Sheffield. Around this time one Thomas Boulsover began to fuse silver to copper, and gave the City its other main product - Sheffield Plate.

People have lived in the Sheffield area since prehistoric times. At Wincobank, a north eastern suburb, the ramparts of an Iron Age hill fort stood on the summit of a steep hill above the River Don. It was built by the Celtic Brigantes tribe in the 1st century AD, possibly to withstand the northward advance of the Roman legions.

Five centuries later, the Saxons founded a settlement beside the River Sheaf, which was called Scafield. It was at Dore, some six miles south-west, and now a suburb of Sheffield, that King Egbert of Wessex received the submission of King Eanred of Northumbria in 829 and so became the first Saxon overlord of all England.

Sheffield retained its Saxon lord for some years after the Conquest, but early in the 12th century it passed to William de Lovetot, a Norman. He founded the parish church,- which today is the cathedral,- and also built Sheffield Castle, of which only fragments remain today.

Mary Queen of Scots spent 14 years imprisoned in Sheffield Castle and it's dependent buildings. The castle park once extended beyond the present Manor Lane, where the remains of Manor Lodge are to be found. Beside them is the Turret House, an Elizabethan building, which may have been built to accommodate the captive queen. A room, believed to have been  the queen's, has an elaborate plaster ceiling and overmantle, with heraldic decorations.

During the Civil War, Sheffield changed hands several times, finally falling to the Parliamentarians, who demolished the Castle on 1648. Castle Market now occupies the site. Sheffield's cutlery trade is nearly as old as it's castle. Smiths and cutlers are recorded there in the 14th century. A " Sheffield thwitel " a knife carried by a miller is mentioned in Canterbury Tales. By the time of Elizabeth 1, Sheffield was famous for it's knives,scissors, scythes and sheers. In the reign of her successor, James 1, the Company of Cutlers in Hallamshire was established by Act of Parliament. " For the good order and government of the makers of knives, sickles, sheers and other cutlery. " It still fulfils this role today, and it's head, the Master Cutler, is second only to the Lord Mayor in Sheffield.

The Industrial Revolution brought large scale steel making to Sheffield in the 18th. century. Much of the medieval town was swept away to be replaced in some part by Georgian elegance, but also by Victorian squalor. Sheffield's city centre has been largely rebuilt in recent years, but among the concrete and glass of modern buildings, some of the best old buildings have been retained. These include the Cathedral, and the Cutlers' Hall which face one another across Church Street.

In 1773, Sheffield was granted its own Assay Office, for approving silver, and its own mark, - a crown. Since 1904 the office has been authorised to assay gold, on which its mark is the York rose.

Sheffield Plate, which gave the town a new industry in the middle of the 18th. century, was based on the discovery by Thomas Boulsover, a Sheffield cutler, of a method of fusing a thin layer of silver to an ingot of copper alloy. The plated ingot could then be rolled and treated as a single metal. The new material found a market among the expanding middle classes. They could have tableware and cutlery that looked like silver, at a fraction of its cost. Modern silver plating is now done by electrolysis, and the old Sheffield Plate, made by Boulsover's method is now valuable and highly prized by collectors.

Today, Sheffield is a modern thriving City. Steel and cutlery production is still the main industry, although on a much reduced scale. New and diverse industries have replaced many of the old factories with modern workplaces. Some years ago the City Council was amongst the first in Britain to introduce a clean air policy for industry, restricting the output of the factory chimneys. This lead to a cleaner, and more importantly, a healthier environment for the City residents.

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Contents of all Pages subject to Copyright © 1998 by [ T. Green ]. All rights reserved.
Revised: 19 Aug 2000 21:38:00 +0100.