Mappin’s origins have been traced to 1774, when Jonathan Mappin (1737-1801) established himself as a silver plate worker.  In 1775, he registered a silver mark in Fargate (and another mark with William Barrick at the same address).  Bailey’s Northern Directory (1781) listed Jonathan as a plater and cup maker.  In 1787, he was listed as a maker of clasps and dog collars.  His son was Joseph Mappin (1766-1841) – a Freeman of the Company of Cutlers in 1787 – who by 1800 was an engraver and copper plate printer in Fargate.

Joseph Mappin had married Hannah Newton (1765-1846) and they had two sons:  Joseph Mappin Jun. (1794-1841) and John Newton Mappin (1803-1883).  The latter made a fortune in the brewing industry and later bequeathed the Mappin Art Gallery.  The former joined his father and the business duly became Joseph Mappin & Son in Fargate.  Joseph Sen. diversified into pearl buttons, spoons, and ‘dessert handles of finest quality’.  In 1833, he registered a silver mark in Pepper Alley. 

By 1828, Joseph Jun. had left his father and joined George Arundel, a pen knife and razor maker, who had been a partner in Robinson, Lamb & Arundel.  The new enterprise was named Arundel & Mappin in Eyre Lane, manufacturing high-class pen, spring, sportsmen’s and table knives, and razors.  Joseph Mappin Jun. married Mary, the daughter of Thomas Thorpe, a Bedfordshire land agent and surveyor.  On 16 May 1821, their first son, Frederick Thorpe Mappin, was born.  Frederick joined the family firm.  He did so aged only fourteen, as George Arundel had retired in 1835 through illness.  Frederick’s father announced himself as an independent maker, ‘Joseph Mappin’ (‘late Arundel & Mappin’).  In 1835, he was granted his Freedom and a corporate mark: ‘SUN’ (picture).  As a manufacturer of ‘Fine Cutlery’, including razors, pen, pocket, and sportsman’s knives, and table cutlery, he was based first at Mulberry Street (1837) and then at 32 Norfolk Street and Mulberry Street (1841).  The firm made exhibition pieces, such as the 27-piece gold knife (featured in The Sheffield Independent, 19 February 1839, and Robson’s Birmingham & Sheffield Directory, 1839).  Mappin’s also made a quadrangular knife inlaid with pearl and gold costing £40 (Sheffield Independent, 24 December 1842).  In 1840, Mappin apparently employed about a hundred hands.

Joseph Jun. died at Broomgrove on 14 September 1841, aged 47, from consumption.  He was buried in Sheffield General Cemetery.  The burial was about a fortnight after the interment in the same cemetery of Joseph Sen., who had died at Leavy Greave on 25 August 1841.  Frederick T. Mappin was left as nominal head of both the firm and his three younger brothers: Edward (1826-1875), Joseph Charles (1828-1901), and John Newton (1835-1913).  Frederick proved an able and energetic businessman.  In 1845, the company purchased a London shop and soon after absorbed William Sansom & Co.  In 1848, Frederick registered a silver mark in Sheffield.  In 1851, this expansion led to the opening of Queen’s Plate & Cutlery Works (bounded by Baker’s Hill, Flat Street and Little Pond Street).  The firm initially traded as Joseph Mappin & Brothers (though confusingly, Joseph Mappin & Son also continued to be listed at No. 42 Norfolk Street).  But after 1852, only one family business existed – Mappin Brothers.  Advertisements traced its launch to 1810.

Mappin’s Queen’s Works was amongst the town’s largest cutlery establishments and there are reports of 500 on the work rolls, which would have placed it not far behind industry leaders Joseph Rodgers & Sons and George Wostenholm.  Like them, Mappin’s premises were more a collection of workshops than an integrated factory.  Apparently, the buildings had once been a coach house for ‘stage-coaches, horses, grooms and genteel stable-loungers’ (Sheffield Independent, 27 June 1857).  However, the craftsmanship of Mappin’s output could not be gainsaid.  It became particularly well known for its sportsman’s knives, Bowies, ‘shilling’ razors, ‘superior’ table cutlery, pruners, and electro-plate.  It was renowned on the Continent for supplying anti-garrotte knives.  A full range of these products was displayed at the Great Exhibition in 1851, including a ‘sportsman’s knife, in pearl, gold-mounted.  Exhibited for workmanship’.  The display won a Prize Medal. 

Mappin Bros reached a peak in the 1850s.  It was appointed cutler to Queen Victoria.  In 1856, it acquired a London salesroom in King William Street, London Bridge, and another in Regent Street in 1861.  This allowed the firm to tap the wealthy metropolitan market.  In began advertising regularly and stated that it was the only Sheffield maker to supply the consumer direct in the capital.  Frederick made sales trips to Europe and America, and agencies were also set up in Canada and Australia.  In 1855, aged 34, he became the youngest Master Cutler.

In 1857, the youngest brother, J. Newton Mappin, became a partner.  However, two years later the brothers fell out and Mappin Bros was dissolved.  Edward and Joseph Charles purchased the business and the rights to the name ‘Mappin Bros’.  Frederick became a senior partner in Thos. Turton & Sons, the steel and tool makers of Sheaf Works, and then embarked upon a successful career as a Sheffield industrialist and public figure.  He had married Mary Crossley Wilson, the eldest daughter of John Wilson, of Sycamore Street.  Sir Frederick (he was knighted in 1886) was one of the few Sheffield businessmen to become a Member of Parliament.  When he died on 19 March 1910, at his mansion Thornbury, in Ranmoor, he left £931,000 – an unprecedented fortune for a Sheffield manufacturer. 

Meanwhile, Frederick’s brother John Newton launched a new electro-plate and cutlery business, Mappin & Co, at The Royal Cutlery Works in Pond Hill.  In 1860, the company registered a silver mark.  Almost immediately, Mappin Bros sued to prevent the use of the name.  J. N. Mappin lived at Heathfield Lodge, Clapham Park.  Nearby lived the family of George Webb, who was a wine and spirit merchant.  In 1860, J. N. Mappin married Webb’s daughter, Ellen Elizabeth, at a Unitarian chapel in Brixton.  He recruited Ellen’s brother, George Webb Jun. (1833-1881), as a partner.  Mappin Bros failed in their legal challenge, but nevertheless J. N. Mappin changed the company’s name: first to Mappin, Webb & Co, and then by 1868 to Mappin & Webb & Co.  The partnership flourished.  In 1868, The Royal Cutlery Works was based in Eyre Street.  Soon the address was Norfolk Street, where Mappin & Webb occupied an ‘enlarged manufactory’ and showrooms (Sheffield Independent, 5 September 1870).  London was central to the firm’s ambitions, where it had showrooms at Oxford Street and Corn Hill.  In 1872, the architect John Belcher was commissioned to build a landmark Gothic-style London head office for Mappin & Webb at Mansion House.  Further silver marks were registered in 1864, 1876, 1882, 1892, and 1894.

Mappin Bros under Edward and Joseph Charles continued to compete with its alter ego.  Such was the animosity in the family that even in the 1890s Mappin Bros continued to dispute the rights to the name.  The firm was still producing fine-quality products, especially sport’s knives, and it registered six silver marks at the Sheffield Assay Office between 1856 and 1894.  In 1862, it won a medal at the London International Exhibition (1862) for ‘a large and excellent assortment of cutlery’.  Industrial reporter Dr Gustav Strauss (1864) praised the establishment but noted that Mappin Bros now only employed between 150 and 200.  From the 1860s, Mappin Bros was apparently losing ground to its rivals.  Joseph Charles Mappin retired in 1873, when the partnership with his brother was dissolved.  Edward Mappin died from a brain effusion in London on 11 January 1875, aged 48, at his residence Wharncliffe House, King’s Road, Clapham Park.  He left under £70,000.  In 1849, Edward had married at Upper (Unitarian) Chapel, Sheffield, Sophia, the second daughter of Michael Hunter.  She died at Brixton, Surrey, on 2 October 1849, aged 26, only five months after the marriage.  She was buried in the churchyard at Upper Chapel.  In the following year, Edward had married Sophia’s sister, Charlotte, but she died three weeks before her husband.  Their grave is in West Norwood Cemetery.  At his death, Edward owned the business, which made about £10,000 a year profit, with stock-in-hand worth nearly £50,000.  However, Edward’s will led to disputes.  By the early 1880s, Mappin Bros only occupied the ground floor of Queen’s Works, with the upper floors used by Singleton & Priestman.  In 1883, Joseph C. Mappin withdrew from the business.  He died, aged 74, at his residence in Brunswick Square, Brighton, on 14 August 1901, leaving £33,972.

After 1883, the company was run by J. C. Mappin’s former partners, Charles Hickson and Frederick Crockford.  In 1890, they sold out to William Gibson and John Lawrence Langman (partners in the Goldsmiths & Silversmiths Co, Regent Street).  Advertisements announced an ‘entire reconstruction’ of Mappin Bros (alongside a sale).  The showrooms were moved from St Paul’s Churchyard to Cheapside.  During the 1890s, Mappin Bros and Mappin & Webb continued to compete for the luxury goods market.  They advertised frequently in London newspapers, such as The Graphic.  George Webb had died on 13 September 1881 at his residence in Downage, Hendon, near London.  He left £117,296.  However, Mappin & Webb’s development was uninterrupted.  Herbert Linley Howlden (1855-1932) joined the Sheffield business in 1873 and became a director in 1898.  In the 1880s, Mappin & Webb expanded further into the silver and luxury goods market, particularly in London.  In 1886, it acquired Stephenson Smith & Son – a silversmith in Covent Garden – and also opened a workshop for bags and dressing cases at Winsley Works, Winsley Street, off Oxford Street (Culme, 1987).  A new Oxford Street shop (West End House) was opened in the 1880s.  After 1890, the firm advertised widely its ‘PRINCE’S PLATE’ – a registered name, which denoted a triple layer of silver.

In Sheffield, the Mappin & Webb workforce apparently surpassed 450 in the 1880s (Sheffield Independent, 25 February 1889).  In 1896, the Mappin family took a controlling interest in the Heeley Silver Rolling & Wire Mills Ltd to boost supplies of nickel silver.  In the same year, a new showroom was opened in Sheffield, where Mappin & Webb occupied a large building (within walking distance of Mappin Bros) along Norfolk Street and directly opposite St Paul’s Churchyard.  The main entrance, supported by granite columns, was flanked by windows filled with the firm’s products.  Inside the factory, silversmiths and platers laboured over silverware and electro-plate salvers, dish covers, entrée dishes, carvers, dinner and dessert knives.  The firm still produced sportsmen’s and hunting knives.  These products were stamped with the corporate mark ‘M’ and ‘TRUSTWORTHY’ (granted 1860).

With a Royal Warrant (1896) and agencies around the world, the Royal Cutlery & Plate Works of Mappin & Webb had eclipsed the old Queen’s Works.  In 1898, Mappin & Webb embraced limited liability.  The firm was capitalised at £250,000, but no shares were issued to the public.  Ownership was in the hands of J. Newton Mappin and his sons: Walter John (1868-1943), Herbert Joseph (1872-1946), and Stanley Arthur (1873-1924).  Goldsmiths & Silversmiths Co decided to sell Mappin Bros and in 1902 J. N. Mappin acquired it.  He established ‘Mappin & Webb (Mappin Bros incorporated)’, thus bringing an end to a family feud that had extended half a century.  The Baker’s Hill factory was vacated and demolished and the workforces of the two businesses were combined.  In that year, the company was reconstructed as Mappin & Webb (1908) Ltd, with a share capital of £400,000.  At the same time, Mappin & Webb established Sheffield Silver Plate & Cutlery Co for mass-produced cutlery.  In 1913, the name Mappin & Webb Ltd was adopted.  The number of employees was apparently about a thousand.

J. N. Mappin had become as wealthy and successful as his brother, Sir Frederick.  In 1896, he bought Headley Park, a mansion and estate at Epsom, Surrey.  Mappin retained a ‘town’ address – Kensington House – and he remained committed to the London market.  He had visionary ideas for glass-roofed retailing areas that would cover Cheapside, Poultry, Bond Street, Regent Street, and Oxford Street.  These schemes, communicated to the Daily News (22 February 1893), never materialised.  Nevertheless, additional Mappin & Webb shops were opened in London (and in other English cities) before the First World War.  Mappin & Webb’s product range was enormous: table knives of double-shear steel; sporting knives; spoons and forks; and carving sets.  Its forte was electro-plated and sterling silver goods, such as tea and coffee services; candlesticks; salvers; toasts racks; presentation and Communion plate.  The firm was known for its plush gentlemen’s and ladies’ travelling cases, with prices up to £500.  Brooches, rings, buckles, gems, and necklaces were sold; and even watches and grandfather clocks.

J. Newton Mappin died suddenly from heart failure at Headley Park on 29 June 1913, aged 77.  His grave is in St Mary’s churchyard in Headley.  He left £824,860.  He had declined the Mayoralty of London, but his name was commemorated in the Mappin Terraces at London Zoo.  By his wife, Ellen Elizabeth (d. 1925), he had several sons, who joined the business.  William Joseph Mappin (1868-1943) became chairman in 1913, when the firm was approaching its zenith.  In 1911, capital had increased to £½ million.  From its London head office in Oxford Street, Mappin & Webb was the most international of Sheffield cutlery firms.  Retail branches appeared in Europe (Paris, Nice, and Rome), South Africa (Johannesburg), North America (Montreal), and South America.  In 1913, Mappin’s Stores opened in Sao Paulo.  It has been described as Brazil’s first department store and made ‘Mappin’ a household name in that city.  To fill its showrooms, the company drew upon several sources of supply, but especially The Royal Works in Norfolk Street.  In 1913, it opened additional capacity for flatware at Sheffield Silver Plate & Cutlery Co.

At the start of the Great War, 370 Mappin & Webb workers were recruited in four hours (Sheffield Yearbook & Record, 3 September 1914).  The firm’s Sheffield factories adapted to light munitions work and also executed large government orders for cutlery.  But the disappearance of the luxury goods trade hit the company hard. However, a new chairman had been appointed during the War. This was William Edward Harris (1859-1923), the first of a string of company chairmen who had been trained as accountants.  Harris was also chairman of the Carlton and Ritz hotels. In the postwar boom, he expanded Mappin & Webb in Sheffield, London, and abroad. In 1920, the board boosted the authorised share capital to £1½m. (As a comparison, the capital of the firm’s nearest Sheffield competitor in size, Walker & Hall, was £450,000.)

In 1922, Mappin & Webb vacated Norfolk Street and moved into The Royal Works at Queen’s Road. It was a modern three-storey block, built in ferro-concrete, which was located at the junction with Charlotte Road (opposite the Midland Railway sidings). A commemorative booklet described a fully integrated factory with electro-plating shop, cross-rolling plant, and buffing shops (Mappin & Webb, 1922). But the factory also had a traditional cutlers’ workshop and a ‘hull’, where knife blades were still hand-ground. As a nod to the past, inside the entrance gates was a small group of hand forgers. The workforce probably surpassed 500. The factory fed Mappin & Webb’s London shops and the overseas retail subsidiaries. In the 1920s, cutlery blades were still made of  ‘best forged’ carbon steel, though stainless table knives had made their appearance. Handles were either made in ‘Prince’s Plate’ and hand-soldered to the blades, or utilised ‘TUSCA’ (an ivory substitute for handles). Huge contract orders were fulfilled for the Admiralty, steamship and railway companies, leading hotels, restaurants, and caterers.

Mappin & Webb’s expansion plans, though, soon stalled. Harris died unexpectedly in 1923. His replacement, Sir Charles Henry Paul Eves (1864-1936), was another accountant and chairman of ‘The Illustrated London News’ and ‘The Sketch’.  At Mappin & Webb, he found a company that was loaded with debt and had a string of poorly performing overseas retail companies. Unable to meet the arrears on the preference shares, Eves drastically cut the company’s share capital to about £1m. Profits recovered somewhat, but the Slump in the early 1930s was another blow. In 1932, Eves told shareholders that Royal Works was too large for the present trade and difficult to keep fully occupied. At the ‘three London houses on which we depend very largely for our profits, sales have fallen off very much’, and the overseas branches were a particularly ‘black side of the picture’ (Sheffield Independent, 24 March 1932).

In 1933, Eves suddenly resigned and one of J. N. Mappin’s sons, Herbert, became chairman. A slow recovery began, with profits steadily increasing until the outbreak of War (when again the firm’s Sheffield factories were largely turned over to the making of light munitions). After 1945, Herbert J. Mappin planned another phase of overseas expansion. But he died in 1946. His successor as chairman was self-made chartered accountant Bertrand Joseph Jennings Tyldesley (1888-1966). Mappin & Webb looked well placed to benefit from the postwar recovery. It had integrated manufacturing operations at Sheffield and (unusually for a cutler) had extensive retail outlets at home and overseas. On the other hand, the development of stainless steel combined with the declining demand from the great ocean liners (due to air travel) meant that the firm faced challenges. It had an enviable reputation in luxury goods, but here, too, fashions were changing. 

In 1954, Tyldesley gave a handout of nearly £1m to the shareholders. This sudden largesse had been partly primed by the sale for £130,000 of the Norfolk Street building to Sheffield Corporation. That was another sign of the times. Tyldesley soon stepped down and control of Mappin & Webb passed to a Jewish family, the Oppenheims, who were involved in property and finance. The Oppenheim involvement reflected the London property boom, which had been triggered in 1954 by the Macmillan government’s lifting of building restrictions.  Mappin & Webb was a particularly tempting target. It was an industrial company with ‘hidden’ (i. e. undervalued) assets – in particular, three of the best sites in London at Oxford Street, Regent Street, and Queen Victoria Street. 

In February 1958, a figurehead chairman was found in  J. N. Mappin Fraser (1890-1959), who was J. N. Mappin’s grandson. In 1957, he had compiled a typescript history of Mappin & Webb (a copy is at Sheffield Local Studies Library.) Perhaps he recognised that the Mappin era was ending. In 1958, Mappin & Webb was sold to Jarvis Astaire and Charles Burkeman, who had married into the Oppenheim family. Astaire and Burkeman were financiers and property developers, too. Astaire had additional interests: boxing promotion and film production.  His autobiography, Encounters (1999) is filled with anecdotes about film and sports stars, such as Dustin Hoffman and Muhammad Ali, but contains little on cutlery.

Astaire and Burkeman soon sold Mappin & Webb. A buyer was found in Sir Charles Clore, another Jewish entrepreneur who was the arch proponent of the hostile takeover bid. In 1959, Mappin & Webb disappeared into the maw of Clore’s Sears Holdings – a  business empire, which already controlled most of the shoe shops in the UK. Later in the same year, Clore also took over Garrards & Co, the Crown jeweller. For about £4m, Clore had become a major player in the cutlery and silverware business. He next acquired Walker & Hall in Sheffield and Elkington in Birmingham and in 1963 launched British Silverware Ltd. However, by the end of 1969, British Silverware had cumulative losses of £¼m and the Sheffield factories were embroiled in a needless dispute with the trade unions. In 1970, British Silverware was liquidated.

Mappin & Webb would have faced problems anyway with the influx of cutlery and flatware from the Far East, but Clore hastened the company’s demise. He had excluded Mappin & Webb’s retail branches from British Silverware. He thus held onto the main prize: the company’s London property portfolio.  In 1990, Mappin & Webb was sold to the jewellers Asprey. Under Asprey, the managing director of Mappin & Webb was another colourful character, Naim Attallah (who served until 1995). In 1994, Mappin & Webb’s classic neo-Gothic Victorian building at No 1 Poultry fell victim to the usual combination of ruthless property developer and fashionable architect. After much protest and litigation, it was demolished and  replaced by an office block that Prince Charles dubbed a ‘1930s wireless’. Mappin & Webb’s trading assets were later bought by the Icelandic conglomerate Baugur. When that company became insolvent in 2010, the Mappin & Webb brand passed to Aurum Holdings. The name is currently owned by Watches of Switzerland. The Mappin & Webb branch at 132 Regent Street continues to sell jewellery, but not cutlery. In Sheffield, the site of the old Queen’s Road factory has been obliterated by retail parks.