Several Beals were scissors makers and had been active since at least the late eighteenth century.  They were located originally in the villages around Sheffield, such as Bradfield and Stannington.  The name ‘Enoch Beal’ occurs in the records of the Freemen of the Company of Cutlers (Leader, 1905-6¹).  The Sheffield directory (1787) listed Enoch Beal, scissors manufacturer, in Bradfield (using the trade mark ‘POG+’).  Several Beals gravitated towards the town in the early nineteenth century.  Among them by 1816 was Enoch Beal, a scissors maker, listed in Bailey Street.  Between 1818 and 1833, an Enoch Beal also appeared in directories in Trippet Lane as both a scissors and shears manufacturer and victualler at The Grapes (a pub which still stands).

The Beal family connections are difficult to establish.  Enoch Beal, who was buried (aged 76) in Bradfield on 1 March 1826, may be the first individual.  Enoch Beal, scissors manufacturer, who died on 19 February 1848 (aged 66) and was buried in Ecclesall, may be the second.   The burial records of All Saints Parish Church.  Ecclesall, list eight children (most of whom died in infancy) of Sarah Beal and Enoch Beal – a scissors smith and later innkeeper, who lived in Sheffield by 1813.   The Census (1841) also enumerates Enoch Beal, a sixty-year-old scissors smith, and his wife Sarah (55), living in Bradfield.  At the risk of speculating, it may be that this Enoch Beal began his scissors career in Bradfield, moved to Sheffield in about 1813, and by 1818 was also operating The Grapes, before returning to Bradfield in the 1830s.

More secure is the identity of a third Enoch Beal, who by 1836 was a scissors and tailors’ shears manufacturer in Hollis Croft.  He operated the business with John Beal, who was the manager (and may also have been his brother).  The stock of scissors of E. Beal, 88 Hollis Croft, was auctioned in 1842 (Sheffield Independent, 9 April 1842).  Enoch and John became insolvent in 1843, when Enoch was described as ‘the younger’ (suggesting that he was the third in line of the Enochs).  It appears that after the bankruptcy, Enoch re-established himself in Hollis Croft.  In 1861, he was living in Garden Street and employing two men and a boy.   Enoch Beal died in Garden Street on 13 December 1862, aged 52, and was interred in Ecclesall.   John Beal also continued in the scissors trade: in 1851 he employed six men in Allen Street.  He may have died in 1864.   The Beals were still in Garden Street in the 1880s:  Enoch’s son, Joseph Enoch Beal, was a scissors forger there until his death in 1886, aged 52: he was buried on 18 February in City Road Cemetery.  

^1. Leader, R E, History of the Company of Cutlers in Hallamshire in the County of York (Sheffield, 1905-6)