Samuel C. Wragg (1807-1865) worked in Furnace Hill – a backstreet on a hill near the town centre.  It was a hive of workshops and courtyards that produced fine cutlery, though living conditions were poor.  Samuel C. Wragg (the ‘C’ denotes Christopher) specialised in spring knives – and especially in knives made for America before the Civil War.   Several of his dirks and Bowie knives have survived in American collections.  Some are depicted in Flayderman (2004)¹ and almost all are interesting or unusual.  Wragg stamped some of his knives with the words ‘Dirk Knife Maker’.  An example in Adams et al (1990)² is marked: ‘Made for the United States by Samuel C. Wragg, Dirk Knife Maker, 25 Furnace Hill, Sheffield’.  That Furnace Hill address – 25 – is stamped on most of Samuel’s surviving output.  One knife pictured in Flayderman carries the stamp, ‘CAST STEEL BOWIE KNIFE’, and is dated on its sheath, April 1841.  These knives would have been amongst the first Bowies and dirks to be exported to the USA.  Wragg also made button-fired switchblade knives (Punchard & Fuller, 2012³).

In directories between 1833 and 1837, Samuel Wragg was listed as a pen, pocket, and lock knife manufacturer at 25 Furnace Hill.  In the Census (1841), Samuel Ragg [sic] Jun. was living at 6 Court, Furnace Hill, with his wife, Elizabeth, and young family (Samuel, William, Amelia, and Rosetta).   Living in that Court, too, was Samuel Wragg Sen., a cutler aged 55, and his wife, Sarah – Samuel C. Wragg’s parents.   Samuel Christopher had been born on Christmas Day in 1807 and baptised at the parish church.   His brother was John Wragg (of John Wragg & Sons).  After 1841, Samuel C. Wragg’s address was 40 Furnace Hill.  The Census (1851) enumerated him at that address, living with Elizabeth, Amelia, Rosetta, and a servant girl.  He was described as a spring knife maker.   John, his brother, lived at the next address.   Samuel Wragg (not S.C., but possibly his son) was a spring knife manufacturer, who was listed in 1849 at 24 Furnace Hill, with a house in New Club Gardens.  (In 1852, a cutler of that name employed four workers in Brocco Street.)

Samuel C. Wragg operated as a typical little mester, who had enough employees to field a team for a cricket match that took place at The Old Grindstone, Crookes, on 18 August 1845.  It was played against the cutlers of George Butler and Wragg’s men won.   Like his father, Wragg seems to have liked a drink.  In 1847, he was summoned to the Town Hall after he had been charged, alongside his son, Samuel, with assaulting fellow spring-knife maker James Winter after a drunken quarrel.  It had started when Samuel C. Wragg ‘threw a glass of hot whisky and water in Winter’s face.  Winter returned the compliment with a glass of cold gin and water’ (Sheffield Independent, 30 October 1847).  Samuel C. Wragg had appeared at the Town Hall on other occasions.  In 1845, he answered charges by Horrabin’s that he was copying their mark by using a winged design with a globe.  

Samuel C. Wragg was listed in Furnace Hill until 1852, but soon after moved house to Langsett Road.   In 1861, Samuel’s wife Elizabeth and her daughters were enumerated in the Census living alone in Penistone Road.  Samuel and Elizabeth had apparently separated.  Samuel was a ‘boarder’ in Fentonville Gardens, living with the daughters of another woman, Ann Downes.  It is interesting to note that S. C. Wragg had once complained to The Sheffield Independent, 11 October 1851, that he was not the ‘Wragg’ of Furnace Hill, who was the subject of a press report (27 September 1851) about an adulterer of that name.  The last years of Samuel C. Wragg’s life are undocumented.   Some of his later knives are marked ‘Sheaf Island Works’, which was also the location of William Jackson.  Wragg did not long outlive the heyday of the Bowie trade.  He died in School Croft on 20 April 1865, aged 57, and was buried in Burngreave cemetery. 

^1. Flayderman, Norm, The Bowie Knife: Unsheathing an American Legend (Woonsocket, RI, 2004)
^2. Adams, W, Voyles, J  B, and Moss, T, The Antique Bowie Knife Book (Conyers, Georgia, 1990)
^3. Punchard, Neal, and Fuller, Dan, Art of the Switchblade: The World’s Concourse Examples (Bloomington, Minnesota, 2012)