Albert Edward Swinden (1879-1965)), known as ‘Ted’, was the son of George (c.1836-1915) and his wife, Martha.   The Swindens came from Norton.  George was a pocket-blade forger (‘the ace of them’, according to Ted), who in 1887 began his own business with his other son, George Arthur Swinden (1869-1945), who worked at Joseph Rodgers & Sons.  George Swinden & Son was based at Egerton Street.  The father invested £200 in the business, but it was soon insolvent with debts of £104 (Sheffield Evening Telegraph & Star, 14 May 1891).  George Swinden died in 1915, aged 79, and was buried at Norton Cemetery.

Ted Swinden, too, became a pocket-blade forger.  He left school at about 14 and found a job at George Ibberson & Co.   However, it seems that after the War Ted and his brother, George, established A. E. & G. A. Swinden, forgers, at Orange Street.  By 1922, George Arthur Swinden & Son was listed as makers of sword, Bowie, and dagger blades at Fitzwilliam Lane.  The ‘Son’ was apparently Willis Bishop Swinden (1894-1933).  Meanwhile, Ted continued as a pen and pocket-blade forger at Ibberson’s.  When Ted was interviewed by a local newspaper in 1950, he had been forging at Ibberson’s for 56 years.   But he was not contemplating retirement.  Instead, he was encouraging new entrants to the trade.  Ted stated: ‘Hand forging is not dead.   Anyone who can become proficient will have a life’s job – and a good one’.   He stated that only about a dozen good hand forgers were left in the trade.  Certainly, he was the last hand forger at Ibberson’s (Sheffield Telegraph, 8 November 1950).   

In 1954, when Ted’s boss Billy Ibberson was Master Cutler, he commissioned a film, ‘Made in Sheffield’ (1954), which provided a factory tour (available on the website of Yorkshire Film Archive).  Ted Swinden was the first worker featured.   He can be seen forging a pocket-knife blade from a rod of steel.   He works the bellows, hammers out the rough shape, cuts off the steel blade on his agon (chisel), punches a nail mark on the upper edge of the blade, and within minutes completes the blade.  It is semi-finished and remains to be ground, but it is bevelled (swaged) with a ‘choil’ (a nick or angling off on the blade edge to facilitate grinding), a ‘tang’ (for fitting the blade into the knife), and a ‘kick’ near the tang (which prevents the blade edge hitting the spring when the knife is closed).

Pocket-knife maker Stan Shaw worked with Ted in the late 1940s and 1950s.  He recalled (in an interview with the author) a remarkable man, who entertained his fellow workers during lunch breaks with tales of the old days.  He worked at lightning speed (a characteristic that is apparent in the film and was the result of decades under the piece-work system).   Stan emphasised that no presses or machines were capable of Ted’s variety of output.  By now stainless steel was the material of choice.  Customers demanded it and crucible steel was no longer available.   Stan highlighted the difficulties of forging stainless, which performs like a self-hardening tool steel:  

When Ted had finished, the blades and parts were as hard as glass.  Hammering had work-hardened them.   At the end of the day’s shift, he would put them in tins, put them back in the forge, and then pile the tins over with hot coke.  The blades would cool slowly overnight, which had the effect of annealing them, so that they were soft enough to take the maker’s mark and could then be passed to me for assembly into the finished pocket knife.

Ted worked through the 1950s.  His hope that others would enter the trade was not realised.  Instead, the trade died, as did the old-timers.  Ted Swinden, of The Dale, Woodseats, died in Sheffield on 26 July 1965, aged 85.   He left £2,453.