The name on this knife denotes Percy Beaumont Smith, a manufacturing silversmith. In the Sheffield directory (1913) his address was Exchange Buildings, Fargate. After the War, Percy Beaumont Smith had a workshop at 86 West Street (back of) and was living at Ranby Road, Ecclesall. 

Strangely, ‘Percy Beaumont Smith’ is untraceable in the standard genealogical sources. That is because his actual name was Percy Thomas Bowman Smith. He was born in Manchester on 20 October 1876 and baptised at Urmston in 1885. His father, Thomas Edward, was a cashier (and then draper); his mother was Annie Astle.  In 1897, he married Ellen nee Parkin at Sheffield. By 1901, Percy and Ellen (and their two children) were living at Moore Street. Percy’s name in the Census was ‘Thomas B. P. Smith’, a ‘silversmith manager’. In the next Census (1911), he was enumerated as a silversmith (‘worker’), born at Manchester Lane, and living with his family at Milton Street. He signed the Census schedule as Thomas Bowman Percy Smith.

Perhaps ‘Beaumont’ was intended to provide some cachet to a common surname.  His business, though, did not prosper. In 1924, when he was residing at 72 Brown Street, he was bankrupt. His debts amounted to about £230, due to a ‘falling off of business during 1923, and entire lack of business, 1924’ (Sheffield Daily Telegraph, 4 September 1924). Later he resumed trading. A reference to him in the Sheffield press stated that he was involved in making silver teapots (Sheffield Daily Telegraph, 11 July 1931). He was then working at Stirling Works, 74 Arundel Street.

In the 1920s, Percy’s wife, Ellen, operated a grocery shop at the Smith’s house, 72 Brown Street. She also had a license to sell beer.  She was one of over a hundred shopkeepers sent for trial for allowing illegal gambling with ‘Fruit’ machines on the premises (Sheffield Daily Independent, 6 June 1928).  In the following year, her beer license was renewed, after accepting a caution for an unspecified conviction (Sheffield Daily Independent, 13 February 1929).  In 1931, the Smith’s eldest son, Thomas Bowman Stanley Smith, was a bankrupt credit draper, turned billiard marker. Ellen Smith, of 72 Brown Street, died at Wayland Road on 13 January 1935, aged 56. Obituary notices appeared in The Sheffield Daily Independent: one on 17 January mentioning that she was the ‘beloved wife of Percy Smith’; the other on 18 January not mentioning Percy, but adding that Ellen was ‘the beloved mother of Stanley, Ethel, Nellie, and Percy’. The interment was at City Road Cemetery.  

In the Register of England & Wales (1939), Percy B. Smith was enumerated as a silversmith, living at 62 Glen Road, apparently in a house split into apartments. His son, Thomas Bowman Stanley Smith, was buried at City Road on 2 February 1946 (aged 48) in the same grave as his mother. His occupation was ‘silversmith’ in the burial register. Percy Thomas Bowman (aka Beaumont) Smith apparently died only a few weeks after his son in 1946, though  the details have not been traced. He seems to have left no will or estate.