Frank Wood (1865-1915) was born in Sheffield, the son of William Wilson Wood and his wife, Ann.  His father was a boiler manufacturer.  Frank was apprenticed as a joiner, before starting a career in cutlery when he came of age.  In 1894, he registered a silver mark (‘FW’) at Helm Works, 41 Arundel Street.  The trade mark was a picture of a ship’s rudder, with the words ‘I GUIDE’ or ‘RUDDER BRAND’.  ‘I. GUIDE & CO’ was sometimes stamped on cutlery.  Wood was a merchant and manufacturer, who sold table and pocket cutlery, cased carvers, cabinets, nickel-silver and electro-plate spoons and forks, fish eaters, carded goods for wholesale, and home and export markets.   Table cutlery in bone, xylonite, and stag, with silver-mounting was a speciality.  Wood lived at Myrtle House, Myrtle Springs, in Gleadless.  He died on 7 November 1915, aged 50, leaving £8,914.  He was buried at City Road Cemetery.

Frank Wood became a private limited company in 1919, with £6,000 capital.  The directors were Frank Wood’s widow, Sarah Margaret, and their son, William Wilson Wood (1892-1954).  The business did not fare well.  In 1926, the company offered for sale at 41 Arundel Street its spoon and fork stamping shop.  In March 1928, its cutlery shop and cutlery case factory was up for sale.  In the same month, Frank Wood Ltd was liquidated.   Another entity, Frank Wood (1928) Ltd, appeared in its place.  Capital was only £100.  The directors of the new company, which remained at Helm Works, 41 Arundel Street, were William Wilson Wood and Robert Bell.  The latter had been born in Sheffield in 1879 and had worked his way up from cutlery warehouseman to manager (probably at Wood’s).  In 1939, Bell was living at Greystones Avenue and described himself as a cutlery director.  W. W. Wood may have retired  He moved to York in 1946 and died in hospital there on 25 December 1954.  He was aged 62 and left £5,595.  In the 1950s, Frank Wood (1928) Ltd was in Eyre Street, with Robert Bell as director.  But it disappeared from directories in the early 1960s.  It was wound up in 1973, when its director was R. Bell (possibly Robert Bell Jun., given that Robert Bell Sen. would have been about 94).