A company profile in Quality (March 1957) – presumably derived from the Ibbersons – stated that it was founded in 1700, or even earlier.  Certainly, Ibberson was a long-established name in Sheffield cutlery.  In the records of the Company of Cutlers the first mention of an Ibberson was in 1666 (the year of the Great Fire of London), when William Ibberson, son of George, Stannington, turner, was apprenticed to George Marriott, Stannington.  George was granted his Freedom in 1673.  The family apparently became more prominent in 1759, when Joseph Ibberson, son of the founder, became Master Cutler.  This may have been the owner of Joseph Ibberson & Son, cutlers, Norfolk Street, which was listed in 1774 (trade mark ‘FONDU’).   In the same year, John Ibberson’s registered a silver mark as a plate worker at Gibraltar.  In 1791 William, the son of Robert Ibberson, was granted the mark ‘717’.  In the late eighteenth century, John and George Ibberson made pen and pocket knives in the Gibraltar district, using a ‘K’ and diamond trade mark.

In the nineteenth century, the succession was William Ibberson (after 1800), Joseph (1840), and George (1860).  By the 1830s, William was a pen and pocket knife cutler in Garden Street.  His son, Joseph, was apparently baptised on 16 December 1798 (his mother was Susannah).  In the Census (1851) Joseph was enumerated as a pen knife whetter, with his wife Ann, in Rockingham Square.  Joseph died from heart disease on 22 May 1853, aged 54, and was buried in the General Cemetery.  It was his son, George Ibberson (c. 1835-1899), who established the family’s name.  He had been a knife whetter, too, and had been apprenticed to Joseph Rodgers & Sons.  In 1871, George joined Albert Wilson, a razor hafter, to form Wilson & Ibberson in Exchange Gateway, Fargate.  They took over the business of Charles Hall.  In 1874, George Ibberson organized his own enterprise at Central Works in West Street.  The Census in 1881 gives the first insight into the size of the company: it employed ten men, two females, and a boy.  Ibberson’s made table, pen and pocket knives, carvers, trade knives, and razors.  But it was particularly noted for its hand-forged pen, pocket, and sportsman’s knives made in pearl, tortoiseshell, and ivory.  They were stamped with Ibberson’s mark – a violin  – which was acquired in the 1880s from John C. Skinner. 

George Ibberson died from a stomach ulcer in Havelock Street on 9 March 1899, aged 64, and was buried in the General Cemetery.  (Sheffield Independent, 11 March 1899).  He left £579.  He had been a prominent United Methodist (Hanover Circuit).  In the 1890s, the business was directed by Joseph William Ibberson (1865-1954), who had joined his father in 1883.  A silver mark was registered in 1900.  In 1911, George Ibberson & Co moved to Rockingham Street.  A Freemason, Rotarian, Wesleyan, and organist, it was said that Joseph was ‘the soul of affability in private life, and one of the easiest men to talk to in Sheffield’ (Derry, 1902¹).  He was, though, fined for severely thrashing a seven-year-old neighbour’s son (Yorkshire Telegraph, 9 November 1902).  In 1911, when the family lived on the Fulwood Road, he told the Census enumerators that he was a cutlery manufacturer: then added helpfully, ‘we make things called knives and razors’.  In 1914, Joseph had helped manufacture some of the first stainless steel knife blades.  By that date, the firm employed about 80 workers.

In 1926, Ibberson’s made a short promotional film, ‘The Making of Violin Brand Cutlery’, which showcased the traditional crafts (Sheffield City Library Local Studies Collection has a rare copy).  It was a portrait of a quintessential Sheffield cutlery firm: typical in its ancient lineage, its modest size and typical, too, in its consistently high quality.  On the backs of such modest businesses and craftsmen, the reputation of Sheffield cutlery was built. 

In the interwar years, the company was increasingly managed by William (‘Billy’) Gregory Ibberson (1902-1988).  He had been born in Sheffield on 4 January 1902, the son of J. W. Ibberson and his wife, Annie.  Ibberson’s survived the depression by ‘a remarkable blending of old methods and new.  Ibberson’s have modified some of the old craftsmen’s methods in order that they may produce cutlery of medium price; but never has this modification been allowed to bring Violin cutlery anywhere near shoddiness’ (Ironmonger, 29 May 1937).  For Ibberson’s this meant, on the one hand, retaining the old cutlery crafts (albeit at low wages), with craftsmen such as Ted Swinden (forger), Bill Thackray (hardener and temperer and marker of blades), and Ted Osborne (pocket-knife maker) and his apprentice Stan Shaw.  On the other, the firm tried to introduce new products, such as the safety-razor.  Besides Violin Works at 112-116 Rockingham Street, in 1932 Ibberson occupied part of Hutton’s Buildings, West Street, after acquiring Brooks, Haywood & Co Ltd (a safety razor blade maker, established in 1928 at Shiloh Works with £100 capital and a ‘ROBIN HOOD’ mark).  Besides the latter mark, Ibberson also used ‘TOM THUMB’ on safety razors.  Its other cutlery marks included ‘STRAD’; ‘DOUBLE SHARP’;  and ‘FIDDLEBRAND’.  By 1940, the venture into safety razors had been abandoned.

Brief profiles of some of Ibberson’s cutlers in the 1930s appeared in the biography of Eddie Chapman (Heeley History Workshop, 2007²).  During the Second World War, Ibberson’s produced government-commissioned combat ‘gravity’ knives, in which the blade dropped into position under the force of gravity (Stephens, 1980³).  After the war, the firm diversified into gardening implements (such as pocket secateurs) and engineers’ tools (at West Street), besides continuing to make pocket cutlery (such as rule and fisherman’s knives).

Billy Ibberson served as Master Cutler in 1954 (the year his father died on 15 May, aged 89, leaving £9,695).  The factory then employed about 120 workers.  Billy revelled in the camaraderie and rituals at Cutlers’ Hall and Freemason’s Hall, where his rotund figure, cigarette holder, and lapel flower made him instantly recognizable.  A gregarious man and a raconteur, he was often consulted as an authority on the history of the industry.  He was a keen photographer and amateur filmmaker and one of his efforts, showing his family (and a slimmer Billy) on holiday in Bridlington in about 1945, can be seen on the Yorkshire Film Archive website.  Part of this collection is a film Ibberson commissioned, when he was Master Cutler in 1954.  ‘Made in Sheffield’ features him in Cutlers’ Hall and the workshops in Rockingham Street, where cutlers such Ted Swinden, Jimmy Unwin (grinder), and Stan Shaw can be seen at work.  However, Ibberson’s declined after the 1950s.  It was a limited company by the 1970s and in the 1980s was taken over by British Syphon Industries.  The mark was later bought by Egginton.  Although the firm epitomised the decline of the family-based cutlery industry, Ibberson had retained the traditional skills longer than most and had produced quality products for over 200 years.  Billy Ibberson, Lawson Road,  died suddenly on 12 June 1988, aged 86, leaving £116,820.

^1. Derry, John, ‘Who’s Who in Sheffield’, bound volume of newspaper cuttings, SCLLS, 1902

^2. Heeley History Workshop, It All Happened in My Lifetime: Stories and Tales of a Hundred Years of Living in Heeley as Recalled by Eddie Chapman (Sheffield, 2007)

^3. Stephens, F J, Fighting Knives:  An Illustrated Guide to Fighting Knives and Military Survival Weapons of the World (London, 1980)