Charles Congreve was born in Sheffield on 20 March 1799, the son of William (a grinder) and Jane Congreve.  He worked as a bookkeeper and became a founding partner of Naylor, Hutchinson & Vickers (the forerunner of the Vickers’ steel combine), which traded through New York.  Congreve left that partnership by 1833 to operate from Gell Street and then from Arundel Works, Arundel Street.  His residence was in Upperthorpe.  He became an American merchant, who made regular transatlantic trips.   He sold razors, such as the one depicted in Lummus (December 1922¹), which has the inscription ‘made from Naylor & Co’s Celebrated Steel … Tempered by Thermometer’.  An early specialism was selling folding Bowies / dirks.  Many ‘Congreve’ knives were marked with the Royal Cipher ‘WR’, which (if the marks are accurate) would date the knives between 1830 and 1837.  That would make Congreve one of the pioneers in the Bowie and dagger trade.  According to Adams (1990²), Congreve marketed ‘some of the finest folding Bowies of that era’.  One fine push-button example was etched: ‘I Fear Neither Lion nor Bear nor Dragon, I Can Cut Down a Tree or Top You a Flagon’.  

Congreve was a Wesleyan Methodist, who formed a life-long friendship with Sheffield writer-poet John Holland.  The latter’s biographer described Congreve as ‘a man of style and taste’ (Hudson, 1874³).  Marketing Bowie knives sometimes caused Congreve some moral discomfort.  He attended meetings of the Sheffield Anti-Slavery Society, where he felt obliged to comment on Sheffield-made Bowie knives that carried the inscription, ‘Death to Abolition’.   Congreve stated that he would refuse to supply such knives and was glad that public opinion was moving against their use.  According to Congreve, Bowie knives had been devised originally for hunting deer and were no more dangerous than a butcher’s skewer.  The market had been created by ‘the ingenuity of our artizans, stimulated beyond all former precedent by the late demand for fine goods from America’.  Evidently, not all Congreve’s abolitionist friends at the meeting were convinced (Sheffield Independent, 14 October 1837).

In 1824, Congreve married Ann née Knowles (c.1792-1833), who was apparently the daughter of a silver plater.  They had several sons, including William Knowles Congreve (1824-1845), Henry Chapman Congreve (1826-1848), Charles McIlvaine Congreve (1829-1878), and Walter Milner Congreve (1831-?).   However, Ann died in 1833, aged 41, and was buried in Portobello churchyard on 24 June (the same day as Charles Congreve, aged three, who was her son).  In 1837, Charles married Maria Cowie, the daughter of a London merchant.  However, in 1841 Maria died in Sheffield from inflammation of the stomach and was buried in the General Cemetery.  

Eight years later Congreve moved to America permanently.  He settled in Brooklyn, with his sons Charles and Walter.  He took over the New York business of George Wostenholm and by 1850 was listed in American directories as ‘General Commission Agent & Merchant’, Maiden Lane, New York City.   He represented several Sheffield houses, including John Walters, Unwin & Rodgers, Shaw & Fisher, Roberts & Slater (see Joseph Slater), and Richard Groves & Sons.  His business letters to Shaw & Fisher are preserved in Sheffield City Library Archives.  Congreve’s interests extended to India, where his eldest son, William Knowles, died from ‘lingering consumption’ on 9 August 1845 at Garden Reach, Calcutta (Sheffield Independent, 11 October 1845).

In the US Census (1850), Congreve valued his real estate at $10,000 and his personal estate at $2,500.  By that date, Charles had brought his son, Charles McIlvaine, into the business.  It was restyled Charles Congreve & Son and in the 1860s began selling Staffordshire and Welsh iron for the American railroads.  On 18 October 1868, The New York Times announced the death of Charles Congreve four days earlier in Liverpool.  The newspaper reported that although he was ‘of this city and from home he was not among strangers’ (being attended by his son Walter).   His unconsecrated burial was in Sheffield General Cemetery, which recorded his address as Brooklyn, New York, and his age as 69.  His son, Charles, continued to trade in New York, while developing extensive interests in Texas railroad companies and planned to ship live cattle from America to England.  He lived at 42 Livingston Place, Brooklyn.  Ten years after his father’s death, he collapsed and died on 26 February 1878 (aged 48) at a railway station in Newark, New Jersey (Sheffield Independent, 12 March 1878).  He was buried in Green-Wood Cemetery, Brooklyn.  Walter, the only surviving son, returned to America and in 1900 was living in California.  His death is untraced.

^1. Lummus, Henry T, ‘Old Sheffield Razors’, Antiques (December 1922)

^2. Adams, W, Voyles, J  B, and Moss, T, The Antique Bowie Knife Book (Conyers, Georgia, 1990) 

^3. Hudson, William, The Life of John Holland (London, 1874)