Allen & Darwin, Atkin Brothers, and Martin and Hall (2024)

This film is of a lecture given by Nick Duggan on 6 November 2024 at Kelham Island Museum, Sheffield in which he outlines the history and story of three Sheffield companies, Allen & Darwin, Atkin Brothers and Martin, Hall & Co.. All three companies reached the zenith of their wealth and production pre-1914 but leave a rich legacy of the exceptional skills they employed in the production of a huge range of cutlery and holloware.. The history of Allen & Darwin illustrates the way in which owners created partnerships and gained experience. Atkin Brothers typified the history of long and loyal workforces in the industry - in 1938 of 31 senior Atkins’ employees, the average length of service was over 47 years; and one man had spent 63 years with the firm. In its time Martin, Hall & Co boasted that "Shrewsbury Works made a speciality of high-class solid silver goods, and, probably, no house in the trade holds a larger stock than theirs’. To see further details see also the entries on our Sheffield knives database - Allen & Darwin is at https://www.hawleysheffieldknives.com... Atkin Brothers is at https://www.hawleysheffieldknives.com... and Martin, Hall & Co is at https://www.hawleysheffieldknives.com... 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 https://hawleysheffieldknives.com/. 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 https://hawleysheffieldknives.com/ 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: https://www.hawleytoolcollection.com/