George Bishop and John Watts (2024)

This film is of a lecture given by Nick Duggan on 24 July 2024 at Kelham Island Museum, Sheffield in which he outlines the history and story of two Sheffield companies, George Bishop and John Watts. He illustrates the quite different progress of the two and the eventual family links between them.
Bishop's had a reputation for high quality cutlery and flatware reflecting the taste in designs at the end of the 19th and first half of the 20th centuries. Watts did have an interest in cutlery but they also hugely diversified into allied products ranging from Olympic standard ice skates to a range of furniture. The Watts building continues as a piece of the city's built heritage having been converted into apartments.
To see further details see also the entries on our Sheffield knives database - George Bishop is at www.hawleyshef... and John Watts is at www.hawleyshef...
The film was developed as part of the Sheffield Treasures Project funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund.
A website developed by our earlier project giving detail of the huge array of knife manufacturers in Sheffield over the last 200 years can be found at hawleysheffiel.... During 2022/23 this was further enhanced by the addition of information about spring and pocket knives as part of the latest NLHF project.
For further details about makers of Sheffield knives see our website at hawleysheffiel... which provides essential data for anyone interested in Sheffield's knife heritage.
To find out more about the Hawley Collection and to donate, visit our website: www.hawleytool...

[@EdgeDynamicsEnglishRazors]

Really interesting. Thank you.

[@Ed_Stuckey]

Should have checked the audio level before uploading.

[@KenHawleyCollectionTrust]

Apologies Ed I thought we had but it needs playing at a lower audio level than normal. I’ll have another listen and may possibly reload. We had a microphone level issue on the day