In the late twentieth century, Stan Shaw (1926-2021) was Sheffield’s pre-eminent pocket knife maker.   He was born on 2 December 1926 at Worrall, a small village near Sheffield, the son of Walter Shaw and his wife, Amelia née Coldwell.  Stan’s father was a ganister miner, who died aged 45 from silicosis, when Stan was about five years old.  His mother was left to raise a family of nine.  Stan’s childhood and education were further blighted by illness, which kept him in hospital for several years.  In 1941, aged 14, he went into Sheffield and knocked on the door of cutlery manufacturer W. G. Ibberson’s and asked for a job.  It was a good choice.  The firm’s owner, Billy Ibberson, was one of the last cutlery makers to support the old skills.  Stan was taken on and apprenticed to the Osborne brothers – Fred and Ted – who Stan would describe as ‘two of the best cutlers in Sheffield’.   Stan learned how to assemble and finish a wide range of cutlery:  pen knives, pocket knives, sportsman’s knives, lock knives, and Bowies.  He was tutored in the arts of forging, grinding, hafting, buffing, workbacking (fancy decoration with a file), and using a parser (to inlay shields).  Almost all the processes at Ibberson’s for its finest pocket knives involved handwork.

By 1954, when he married his wife, Rosemary née Burgin, Stan had succeeded Ted Osborne as Ibberson’s premier craftsman.  Being a working cutler (even the best) was neither well-paid nor considered particularly prestigious at that time.  But it was a steady job and Stan found that mastering the complex skills of knife making brought its own rewards.   A fascinating view into Ibberson’s Rockingham Street factory can be seen in ‘Made in Sheffield’ – a short film commissioned by Billy Ibberson, when he was Master Cutler in 1954 (Yorkshire Film Archive website).  Stan can be seen using a parser or fiddle drill (see film at 7:54).

He later left Ibberson’s and after 1960 worked for other noted Sheffield firms:  John Watts, John Clarke, and George Wostenholm.  By then, the craft and family-based cutlery industry was in serious decline.  Its demise was hastened by imports of cheap cutlery from the Far East and mass-produced Swiss Army knives.  By 1983, most of the traditional names in Sheffield cutlery had disappeared.  Unwilling to retire at 57, Stan rented an old Victorian workshop in Garden Street, near Sheffield city centre, and (helped by Rosemary) became an independent cutler (or ‘little mester’).   He did so with considerable trepidation, because at that time the demand for hand-made cutlery seemed uncertain.   However, a tour of Sheffield’s souvenir and gift shops soon netted his first orders and these were followed by a growing number of commissions from the emerging collectors’ market.   His order book began to fill; soon it would bulge; and eventually it would extend several years.

The author first met him in 1986, shortly after Stan had become a self-employed cutler.   His backstreet workshop was cramped; it had bare brick walls and a stone floor; a makeshift forge (with an old vacuum cleaner rigged up to supply the draught); and windows that let in light but not sunshine.  Stan was approachable and unassuming, but dedicated to his craft.  Much of his success was due to sheer hard work.  His output was staggering.  He worked a five-day week, often continuing at home where he had a small workshop.   At first glance, he was a diminutive man and his childhood illness had left him with a slight limp.   But he had strong arms and hands; and almost limitless powers of endurance.  Visitors who watched him at his workbench were often struck by how quickly he completed each task.  He explained that it was simply how he had been trained: cutlers had to work fast to earn a decent wage.

He was once described as a ‘Living National Treasure’ by the magazine Country Life.  Certainly, he was last of the legendary Hallamshire cutlers: men who centuries ago worked in the rural forges around Sheffield and could do all the knife processes from start to finish.   In other words, saw out the steel blades and tools; grind them; harden and temper them in a forge;  cut and manipulate the handle materials (whether pearl, ivory, horn, or wood); and then assemble the parts into a fully-functioning pocket-knife.  However, he took these skills to an unprecedented level, working with modern materials (such as stainless steel) that are far more exacting than the older carbon steels.   He also worked in conditions that entailed much personal sacrifice.   All this was done without the assistance of co-workers or the numerous ancillary trades, which in the old days formed the essential support for each craftsman.  It was as though the essence of the cutlery industry had been distilled into one individual.

His exhibition knives – multi-blades, which were entirely hand-crafted in silver, gold, or platinum – were astonishing creations.  He designed most of them himself.  He was as happy, though, making everyday pocket knives; and was not above repairing old or broken knives for customers.  His knives were stamped ‘S. SHAW’ and he had an Assay Office silver mark (‘SS’).  It seemed that there was no type of pocket-knife that he was incapable of making.  He enjoyed the challenge of making 19th-century classics, like the folding push-button Bowie knife.  He often expressed his reverence for the accomplishments of past generations of Sheffield cutlers.

In 2009, his workshop at Garden Street had become so dilapidated, that it was no longer safe for him to work there.  Fortunately, Kelham Island Industrial Museum offered him a new home.  The last phase of his career was particularly satisfying.  He was able to demonstrate his skills to visitors, while continuing to make knives in comfortable and friendly surroundings.  

He was now a celebrity.  In 2003, he became honorary freeman of the Company of Cutlers; and in 2017 was awarded the British Empire Medal.   It was the first time a pocket-knife cutler had received a public honour.  Characteristically, he saw it as belated recognition for his ancestors in the trade, who had laboured in dreadful conditions for such poor wages.  

He never lost his fascination in crafting knives.  Even at the end of 2019 (when he was into his nineties), he was still ‘clocking on’ at 7.30 a.m.  to spend the day at his workbench at the Museum.   In December of that year, he was hospitalised with an infection.  By the time he recovered, Kelham Island Museum (and the whole country) was in ‘lockdown’ because of the Covid-19 pandemic.  Stan Shaw had not only outlived an industry, but also lived to see a Museum go into retirement.  But then his working life had spanned almost eighty years!

He died at his home at Deepcar, near Sheffield, on 26 February 2021.  He was aged 94.   The funeral was at St Mary’s Church, Bolsterstone, and Hutcliffe Crematorium.  His work and career are recounted in G. Tweedale, Stan Shaw: Master Cutler (1993); and G. Tweedale, Stan Shaw and the Art of the Pocket Knife (2019).  Obituaries written by the author appeared in The Guardian, 15 May 2021; and Knife Magazine, April 2021.