Walter Grady (1849-1920) was born in Sheffield, the son of William (a Scot) and Susan Grady.  His father was a comb maker in Rockingham Lane.   Aged 12, Walter was already training as a cutler and by 1871 had become a farriers’ knife maker.   He established his own business in about 1885.  He specialised in plumbers’, glaziers’, and farriers’ knives at Buffalo Horn Works, ‘back of’ Soho Street.  It is likely to have been a small operation.  It was not listed by the turn of the century, though ‘W. Grady & Co’ appeared in 1905 as part of C. A. Argyle.  By 1911, Walter Grady & Sons was listed in Fitzwilliam Street as a cutlery manufacturer – then later as a light edge-tool manufacturer directed by Grady’s sons, Laurence William and Ernest.  Walter Grady, Onslow Road, died on 29 May 1920, aged 71, and left £198.  His firm continued in the 1920s under Ernest.  The trade mark ‘VES’ was listed in Woodhead (1991)¹ under W. Grady & Co, West Hill Lane, but the mark’s owner was probably C. A. Argyle.

^1. Woodhead, Eileen, Trademarks on Base-Metal Tableware (Ottawa, Canada Parks Service, 1991)