Trademark
John Rowbotham (c.1741-1820) was a grocer and chandler in Sims Croft and Tenter Street. His son, John (1770-1846), was apprenticed to Joseph Barraclough, a pen knife cutler. His Freedom was granted in 1791. John and Joseph Barraclough registered a silver mark from the foot of Scotland Street in 1787. The partnership ended in 1793, when Rowbotham registered a silver mark from White Croft. He joined John Wingfield (c.1767-1829). The latter was from an old Ecclesfield family – probably the son of a file smith – and later lived at Butterthwaite Hall. In 1797, Rowbotham & Wingfield was listed as a pen and pocket knife cutler, White Croft, using the mark ‘ROWBOTHAM WINGFIELD’. The firm later claimed an establishment date of 1751.
In 1811, Hoult, Rowbotham & Wingfield was listed in White Croft. John Hoult was the new partner. By 1816, the firm was styled Hoult, Rowbotham, Wingfield & Wade in Tenter Street, with the addition of Richard Wade. The latter (baptised on 19 February 1788) was the brother of Robert Wade, of Wade & Butcher. When Hoult withdrew in 1818, the firm became Wade, Wingfield, and Rowbotham – a name it retained until the start of the 1850s. It specialised first in table cutlery and ‘originally took a few cottages in Tenter Street and turned them into workshops, and with a view of being in the country Mr Wingfield erected a garden house on a spot where now is the corner of Radford Street, and there he occasionally resided’ (Sheffield Independent, 22 December 1886). By his wife, Elizabeth (c.1774-1856), John Wingfield had a son – named John (14 May 1799-1886) – who joined the business after he left school. John Rowbotham died at Gell street on 23 May 1820, aged 79, and was buried at St Paul’s. His son (by his wife Anne) was also named John (1799-1851), who joined Wingfield, Rowbotham & Co.
John Wingfield Sen. died at Butterthwaite on 18 March 1829, aged 62, and was buried in Ecclesfield. His tombstone (and those of his descendants) can be seen in a corner of St Mary’s Churchyard, Ecclesfield, close to the grave of the antiquarian, Joseph Hunter. In 1835, his son John married Sarah Rowbotham (1810-1885). She was the daughter of Isaac (1775-1841), a grocer and tallow chandler in Tenter Street, who was the brother of John Rowbotham Sen. Thus John Wingfield Jun. and John Rowbotham Jun. became related. (John Wingfield Jun.’s brother, William, was another partner, but he withdrew in 1832.) The enterprise became a general merchant, selling cutlery and edge tools, but also had production facilities and access to steel making furnaces. After the 1840s, saws were manufactured (or factored) in Arundel Lane and the firm advertised as a steel converter in Church Street.
Wade lived in Glossop Road; the Rowbothams in Gell Street. John Rowbotham Sen. died there on 3 November 1846, aged 76. He was buried in St Paul’s churchyard. His son died in Gell Street on 2 March 1851, aged 51, and was buried in Portobello. Wade had retired first to Totley and then to Boston Spa, where he died on 20 March 1867, aged 81. He left about £60,000 to his three daughters. The firm became Wingfield, Rowbotham & Co under John Wingfield, Alfred Rowbotham (1803-1874) – who was the brother of John – and Henry Colley (1802-1881). The latter may have been the son of William Colley, a scissors smith and Master Cutler. Henry Colley’s son by his first marriage in 1833 to Mary Mayor was Francis Arnold Colley (c.1833-1899), who by the 1860s was also a partner in Wingfield, Rowbotham.
John Wingfield played a key role in the expansion of the company. He was said to have developed ‘an extraordinary capacity for business, and became one of the most successful and persevering travellers on the road’ (Sheffield Independent, 22 December 1886). A trade journalist described the Tenter Street enterprise as ‘old-fashioned two-and three-storied buildings’, covering an acre (Industries of Sheffield, 1888). In 1871, John Wingfield’s Census entry recorded 264 workers (202 men, 25 women, and 37 boys) at the firm, which marketed and produced saws, files and scissors, besides table and pocket knives. Its products were destined for home and exports markets, especially Australia, where the firm had an agent in Sydney. After the mid-nineteenth century, crossed clay pipes with ‘S’ and ‘AIGO’ became prominent marks. These had belonged to the Colleys (Alice Colley). A harp and crown (registered in 1885) was also used – apparently for plated goods. The company registered silver marks at the Sheffield Assay Office in 1891 and 1899.
By 1871, John Wingfield had moved to Collegiate Crescent and soon retired. In 1871, John Hunt, a nephew of Alfred Rowbotham, was a partner. Alfred died on 15 September 1874, aged 71, leaving under £30,000. Wingfield’s sons, John Wingfield (1838-1898) and William Henry Wingfield (1839-1914), and Hunt assumed control in 1885 (when Francis A. Colley withdrew). John Wingfield Jun. told the Census in 1881 that they employed 395 hands, which was probably a peak. His father, John, died at his home in Collegiate Crescent on 21 December 1886, aged 87, and was buried in St Mary’s churchyard in Ecclesfield. (His wife, Sarah, had predeceased him in 1885, aged 75.) He left a considerable fortune of £53,970.
John and William Henry Wingfield retired in 1898, when the business was bankrupt. Managers of Christopher Johnson stated: ‘it is no secret they have been losing heavily for years, and we fear the late proprietors have little left of the large fortune their father left them. So much for underselling and low prices’ (Johnson Letter book, 22 July 1898, Sheffield Archives). John died at Southport on 28 August 1898, aged 60, leaving £3,109. William Henry died at Totley on 13 March 1914, leaving £1,574. They were buried at Ecclesfield. Francis A. Colley, of Roslin Road, died on 22 December 1899, aged 66. For eight months he had been confined to the house with a spinal complaint (Sheffield Daily Telegraph, 27 December 1899). His burial was at Ecclesall. He left only £26.
The business was bought by Thos. Turner, which re-registered Wingfield, Rowbotham’s silver mark. The old production facilities were sold. The sales prospectus of the Tenter Street and White Croft premises listed warehouses, forging hearths, cutlers’ shops, warehouses, engine and boiler house, and a 12-hole crucible steel furnace (Sheffield Independent, 4 April 1900). In the 1920s, Turner’s continued to use the Wingfield, Rowbotham name from Suffolk Road.