The brothers were Sam Villiers Wheatley (1840-1887) and William Thomas Wheatley (1846-1912).  They were the sons of Nottinghamshire-born John Wheatley (c.1808-1880) and his wife, Bathsheba (c.1807-1883).  Sam was born in Hull, but by 1841 the Wheatleys were living in West Street, Sheffield.   John was a commercial traveller, but later became a manufacturer of mineral waters and cordials.  When he died on 2 March 1880, aged 72, he left under £100.  Sam and William became commercial travellers.  By the 1870s, Sam had joined M. Hunter & Son as a partner, but this was dissolved in 1878, when the Wheatleys formed their own business.   It was established at Eclipse Works, New George Street, as a manufacturer and merchant of cutlery, files, steel, saws, edge and joiners’ tools.  William seems to have led the business (with Sam as the traveller) and in 1881 he told the Census that their enterprise employed 147 workers.  Two years later the New George Street factory was destroyed by fire.   Another setback was the death of Sam at the Victoria Hotel in Glasgow on 15 April 1887, aged 47.  He was buried in Ecclesall, leaving £2,295.  

By 1893, Eclipse Works was at Boston Street, off the London Road, in Little Sheffield.  The firm continued to market tools, but shifted towards cutlery, particularly hollow-ground razors, pocket knives, table cutlery, and electro-plate.  In 1892, Wheatley Bros had registered a silver mark.  In 1897, it took over the electro-plate business of Abraham Blackwell, of Cambridge Street.  Like many plated wares firms, Wheatley Bros benefited from the Victorian consumer boom.   It supplied hotels with table cutlery, tea services, entrée dishes, electro-plate on nickel silver, toast racks, and spoons and forks.  Most of these products were supplied to the trade only.  

Sheffield and Rotherham … ‘Up-to-Date’ (1897) contained a review of Wheatley Bros.  About 200 workers were said to have been employed at the factory.  William T. Wheatley was pictured in his garb as vice-consul for the government of Peru.  The article claimed that Wheatley’s had been resolute in their competition with foreign rivals, especially the ‘unscrupulous German’.   W. T. Wheatley’s solution to the counterfeiting of Sheffield trade marks was a ‘National Trade Mark’, but the idea was never taken up.   A journalist noted that W. T. Wheatley has a ‘superior air, and is inclined to take criticism as an insult … [though] … he has business ability’ (Derry, 1902¹).   He was a Freeman of the Company of Cutlers (1891), a JP (1903), and a Freemason.  

In 1901, the business relocated to Wheat Sheaf Works, John Street.  W. T. Wheatley died at his residence in Meadow Bank Avenue on 4 May 1912 and was buried in Ecclesall.  He left £7,688.  The firm became a private limited company in 1913, with £15,000 capital, when the partners were William’s sons, William Ernest Wheatley (26 February 1874-7 October 1931) and Frank Villiers Wheatley (26 December 1874-18 July 1924).   In the early 1920s, the firm marketed ‘rustless’ steel cutlery, such as fish eaters, in which the handle and blade were made as one piece.   Wheatley’s advertisements appeared in The American Cutler.  In 1933, Wheatley Bros Ltd was wound up.  In 1934, Wheatley Bros was re-registered as a limited company.  Capital was not stated but the subscribers were Thomas H. Vickers, Bingham Road Cresent (the company secretary) and Harry Cantrell, Havelock Square (Sheffield Independent, 1 January 1934).  It seems that Wheatley Bros name and trade marks – a wheat sheaf (picture); and a man with an ensign above the word ‘ESTANDARTE’ – had been acquired by Needham, Veall & Tyzack, so that its address henceforth was Milton Street. 

^1. Derry, John, ‘Who’s Who in Sheffield’, bound volume of newspaper cuttings, Sheffield City Library Local Studies, 1902