© Ken Hawley Collection Trust - K.0435
The prominent silver and electro-plate firm was led first by John Frederick Fenton (1820-1883). His parents were Frederick Fenton (1797-1871), a silversmith, and his wife Mary (1800-1877). In 1841, Frederick was working in Birmingham as a ‘plater’. By the end of the 1840s, Frederick was living in Broad Street, Sheffield, as landlord of the Tankard & Punchbowl in that road. Mary was described in the Census as an ‘innkeeper’.
John F. Fenton worked briefly for Hawksworth, Eyre & Co in the Wicker, before starting a small business. According to a trade catalogue, 1850 was the establishment date. In 1856, Fenton was part of Hukin & Fenton, which registered a silver mark from Cadman Lane (Fallon, 19921). Within months Fenton registered his own mark (‘JFF’) at the same address. In 1857, he registered a silver mark with Charles Anderton, but their partnership ended in 1859 and Fenton moved to Norfolk Lane as a silver and electro-plater. The Sheffield Daily Telegraph, 19 March 1883, remarked: ‘After several years of hard struggling and two dissolutions of partnership – and while the business was of but very limited proportions – he took into partnership his brother’. This brother, Frank, who had been born in Birmingham, apparently joined the firm in 1859. In 1861, he was enumerated by the Census as Francis Fenton, Gell Street, who employed six apprentices, seven silver burnishers, and five male servants.
Fenton Bros opened a London showroom in about 1875 at 22 Bartlett’s Buildings, Holborn Circus. By then the Sheffield factory was South Moor Works, in Porter Street and Earl Street. The factory employed 33 workers in 1861; 73 in 1871; and 114 (65 men, 21 women, four girls, and 24 boys) in 1881. The firm registered seven silver marks between 1859 and 1896. Fenton’s offered the usual selection of Victorian silver and electro-plate wares: tea services, soup tureens, spoons, forks, fish carvers, nutcrackers, crumb scoops, and cased goods. These were sold to the public, hotels, steamships, and clubs.
John F. Fenton died on 14 March 1883, aged 62, and was buried in Ecclesall. He left £15,948. Frank Fenton had retired to Jersey in about 1878, and died on 26 October 1884 at Richmond House, Leamington, aged 52. His estate was £9,918. He was also buried in Ecclesall. Samuel Fenton, John’s eldest son, was now running the firm. Sometime before 1888, Samuel took Alfred John Fenton, his brother, into partnership. Samuel died in Sheffield on 21 November 1893, aged 50, at Thorn Bank, Spring Hill Road, and was buried in Ecclesall. An obituarist stated: ‘He was particularly well known and highly respected by a large circle of friends in the North of England and Scotland, where he had travelled for the last twenty years’ (Sheffield Daily Telegraph, 23 November 1893). Samuel left £119. In 1895, the firm was registered as a limited liability company with £20,000 capital. William Staniforth was managing director (he died on 7 May 1902). In 1912, it acquired the assets of John Wragg & Son, which included the trade mark of two crossed knife blades. Like many silver and electro-plate firms, Fenton Bros did not survive the depressed interwar years and it ceased trading in about 1938 after an ill-fated merger – Silver & Steelcrafts Ltd – that included James Deakin & Sons.
1. Fallon, J P, Marks of London Goldsmiths and Silversmiths 1837-1914 (London, 1992)