William Skidmore (1821-1880) was born at Ashford-in-the-Water, Derbyshire.   He was the son of Elisha (a farmer) and Hannah.  By the 1840s, he was a surgical instrument maker in Sheffield at first Milk Street, and then at Fitzwilliam Street.  In 1851, Skidmore & Co displayed its surgical and dental instruments at the Great Exhibition.  By 1854, when it advertised in the local directory, Wm. Skidmore & Co was at Enema Works, Cemetery Road and Pearl Street (near the General Cemetery).   The partners were William Skidmore and Amos Cooke (a confectioner in Fargate, who may have provided capital).  In 1860, this partnership ended.   

In the following year, Skidmore’s registered a silver mark.  It advertised regularly in directories, with illustrations of a wide range of steel surgical, dental, and veterinarian instruments.  In 1868, a two-page advertisement featured its newly-invented ‘Magneto-Electric Machines for Nervous Diseases’.  Skidmore may have operated the largest such enterprise in Sheffield.  According to the Census in 1861, he employed 22 men, 12 boys, and seven girls; by 1871, he had 55 workers.  William Skidmore (Elmwood, Lyndhurst Road) died on 5 November 1880, aged 59.  He left under £6,000.  Until his son William (1864-1921) came of age, the firm was apparently directed by Samuel Smith Hoyland (1854-1902).  The son of a draper, he had married William Sen.’s daughter, Rose Annie.  In 1881, Hoyland told the Census that Skidmore’s had 46 employees.  

In 1892, the firm became a private limited company (capital £5,000), with William Skidmore and various Hoylands (including Samuel) on the board.  By 1901, Herbert Lockwood (1860-1940) was managing director.  He was the son of Joseph Lockwood, who was a manager at W. & S. Butcher.   William and Herbert were in charge at Enema Works into the interwar years.  The firm apparently acquired W. & H. Hutchinson.  William Skidmore Jun. died on 30 June 1921, aged 57, and was buried (like his father) at Holy Trinity churchyard, Ashford-in-the-Water.  Herbert Lockwood became senior partner.  He died on 21 October 1940, aged 80, leaving £2,095.   The Lockwoods continued to direct Skidmore’s, which in the early 1960s moved to Allen Street.  In 1989, when John Lockwood was chairman, capital was £20,000.  The owner was Smiths Industries, but in that year Skidmore’s was acquired by the German company, Aesculap (which was part of  B. Braun, a multinational healthcare provider).  Skidmore’s employed the last hand forger of surgical instruments – Peter Goss.