This knife in our collection appears to have been made by Stanley Tools. We think it might have been made in the late 1930s or 1940s, before the ubiquitous Stanley knife had largely taken over from the mundane pocket knife.

The American tool firm of Stanley became one of the most famous names in the business.  It was founded in 1843 n New Britain, Connecticut, by Frederick T. Stanley and his brother, William.  Their firm, incorporated as The Stanley Works in 1852, manufactured and sold hardware and hand tools.  The product line expanded after the merger in 1920 of Stanley Works with Stanley Rule & Level Co - a crosstown neighbour in New Britain, which has been founded by a cousin of Frederick Stanley.

In the 1920s, Stanley Works began to expand in Europe. In 1926, it acquired a German manufacturer of hardware products. Stanley Works (Great Britain) Ltd was another subsidiary. Stanley initially began marketing its tools - especially its woodworking planes - from an office in London.  At that time, such tools were usually sold to the tradesman carpenter, joiner, or woodworker.  The trade mark was the 'STANLEY' name and a heart, with 'S. M.'

Once the Depression began to wane, the Stanley directors started looking for a manufacturing base in the UK.  In 1936, the Stanley name appeared on a modest two-storey factory at Woodside Lane, Sheffield.  This was Industry Works of brace and hand-drill maker James A. Chapman Ltd, which had been sold to Stanley by its owner, Norman Neill.  The latter remained for a short period to smooth the American takeover.  In 1937, Stanley director Hoyt C. Pease (1911-2004) arrived from New Britain to supervise the launch of Stanley planes and other tools.  These were to be mass produced by the latest American spindle machines.  Another manager appointed at this time was Owen Dunglison Tannett (1909-1976), who had been born at Misterton, Nottinghamshire, the son of William Owen Tannett (a draughtsman) and his wife, Ethel Jane.  By the end of the 1930s, Stanley Works was growing rapidly and a new building was completed.  Production was estimated at about 800 Stanley planes a week (besides about 500 cheaper 'Acorn' planes). During the Second World War, production was switched to munitions work, such as shell fuse primers, tracer shells, and breast drills (which went into the tool kit of every airframe fitter).  The German blitz left the factory largely unscathed, though production was disrupted.  Pease had returned to America during the war (taking an English wife with him), while Tannett served in the Navy.

After the War, largely under Tannett's direction, Stanley Works recovered quickly.  The original intention was to supply hand tools for the UK and a few Empire markets; however, after 1945 the export trade to dozens of overseas markets boomed.  Turnover was £1/4m in 1947 and the workforce was apparently approaching 500. In 1950, a major factory extension was opened. It was appropriately commemorated with an illustrated booklet, which depicted the new 4/5 storey building (fronting Rutland Road and Woodside Lane) and some of the new workshops (such as the buffing shop, with its female workforce).  Stanley still operated under the American parent company (with Pease on the board), while Tannett was the managing director in Sheffield.  Warwick M. Dingley was the sales manager, with Ede Varah as the company secretary.

The demand for tools mushroomed during post-war reconstruction.  One manager recalled 'There was none of this prefabricated stuff we see today. Then, you had teams of craftsmen joiners working inside what was to be a new shop, or putting together a huge wooden counter for a new bank' (Stanley Tools, 1986).  But Stanley's tools were no longer the preserve of the master craftsmen; they began to find their way into every home, as 'everyman' became a handyman. During the 1950s, Stanley was one of about half a dozen tool firms, which decided to target the newly-emerging 'do-it-yourself (DIY) market.  In this period, the firm began to market the tools which would make Stanley a household name.  These included the ubiquitous 'STANLEY KNIFE' (with its interchangeable and retractable blades, which was first manufactured in the UK in 1949) and the 'YANKEE' spiral ratchet screwdriver. Other tools in the extensive Stanley catalogue included its famous Stanley and Bailey planes, Phillips and Handyman screwdrivers, claw hammers, and shaper tools.  The burgeoning range of tools demanded greater production facilities. Hammer making needed a forge, which was best located away from residential Woodside (where the ground was unstable).  In 1958, a new Stanley factory opened at Ecclesfield at a cost of about £250,000.  Here Stanley's hammers were made from Sheffield steel.  The handles (cut from straight-grained hickory from the USA) were subcontracted to a firm at Worksop.  The planned output was 1/2m hammers a year, with thirty different types marketed.  The factory also had the capacity for an output of 20,000 shapers a week (Quality, January, August, 1958).

The range of Stanley tools had increased from about 46 in 1948 to nearly 200 a decade later. In 1959, the workforce was approaching 700. In 1961, Stanley acquired S. N. Bridge & Co at Battersea, London, from Firth Brown Tools Ltd. Stanley-Bridges Ltd was formed to sell home workshop power tools (such as 'SWIRLA WAY' abrasive discs and polishers). Since the 1950s, 'SURFORM' tools (originally developed at Firth Brown Tools) had been manufactured under licence by Stanley. In 1963, the company bought the entire rights and 'Surform' became another Stanley product.  These new tools helped push Stanley towards a more marketing-led business model.  In 1957, Stanley had established a UK sales force, instead of relying on its London agent E. P. Barrus. Market research was introduced and Stanley's advertisements began to appear in the new DIY magazines.  The Stanley marketing colours were changed from orange and green to yellow, black and white (which soon became recognised globally as the Stanley colours). Tool packaging was improved to incorporate better labels and diagrams.  This was intertwined with more sophisticated retailing, which involved tool centres and display bars.

Some Stanley products had been in decline during the post-war years.  For example, the demand for planes had fallen rapidly after the Second World War, because of competition from electric tools.  Stanley plane making was moribund by the 1980s, but the company shifted into other niches.  In 1973, Stanley entered the garden tools market by acquiring William Mills at Woodhouse. Stanley's workforce was approaching 2,000. In the early 1970s, a distribution and warehouse facility began operating at Hellaby Lane, Rotherham. In 1989, Rabone & Chesterman, which had factories in Sheffield and Birmingham, was bought for £8.5m.  A new division at Stanley - Proto Industrial Tools - was created in 1989 at Woodside to market industrial mechanics' tools (such as sockets, spanners, and tool boxes).  In 1991, Mosley Stone Ltd, a maker of decorators' tools at Manchester and Leeds, was acquired.  Stanley's tools numbered almost 2,000 separate lines.  In addition, to the famous brands 'Bailey', 'Yankee', and 'Surform', it marketed 'Steelmaster' hammers, 'Mole' gripping pliers, 'Powerlock' rules, 'Horizon' levels, and 'Fibron' long tapes.

The expansion of Stanley in the UK reflected the performance of its American parent, which bought companies in Europe (France, Poland, and Czechoslovakia), and Australia, the USA, and the Pacific Rim.  This strategy maintained Stanley's growth, but profits and employment began falling in the early 1990s.  At the start of the decade, Stanley in the UK employed about 1,300 workers.  But in 1992, the Rabone Chesterman plant at Birmingham was closed, because it was no longer profitable, and up to 135 jobs were lost (the plant had originally employed about 200).  In the mid-1990s, Stanley Works in New Britain began a major restructuring of its operations in the USA, with a loss of about 800 jobs.  In Sheffield, Stanley had about 230 workers at Woodside (where Stanley made planes, braces, drills, and steel rules); about 270 at Hellaby Lane (where Stanley knives, Surform planes, Yankee screwdrivers and spirit levels were made); and approximately 200 at Ecclesfield (making hammers, chisels, and screwdrivers).  In 1998, in a far-reaching reorganisation known as 'Power of One', Stanley announced that it was closing its operations at Ecclesfield and planning to sell the Woodside plant (if a buyer could be found).  Henceforth, Stanley's manufacturing and distribution was to be handled at Hellaby.  Stanley intended to wind down the manufacture of what it termed its 'mature' products - namely, planes, drills, and braces (Sheffield Telegraph, 9 October 1998).

Woodside continued to operate until 2002, when it was fmally closed, amidst reports that 200 workers would lose their jobs.  Some of the Woodside products were to be transferred to Hellaby, but the remainder were to be made abroad and stamped with the Stanley logo (The Star, 19 February 2002).  Stanley had been importing its 'Workmaster' range of cheaper tools (for the DIY mechanic) from Europe and the Far East since 1984.  By 2006, Stanley was fully consolidated at Hellaby, but further job losses followed.  In 2006, the American owners announced plans to cut the 300-strong Hellaby workforce by over a third, in the face of overseas production costs which were 40 percent lower than those in the UK (The Star, 29 June 2006).

The manufacture of screwdrivers, planes, and chisels ended.  Ken Hawley (in hand-written note amongst the Stanley papers in the Hawley Collection) recorded that the last Stanley plane made at Hellaby was finished in 2007 - after which the equipment was shipped out in containers to Mexico.  In 2009, The Stanley Works acquired for $3.5bn another American company - Black & Decker - to form Stanley Black & Decker Corporation, based in Connecticut.  It remained a global provider of hand and power tools, besides electronic security, healthcare, and other services.  But the Woodside plant became an empty shell, though parts of it were rented for storage or hired to garage operators.  By 2018, the Hellaby premises had closed and Stanley's only local office was at Sheffield Business Park, Tinsley.