The' Little Mesters'

[westmoors 11]

Little ‘Mesters’

 

This may well be like telling the reader how to suck eggs so apologies now if you have heard it all before, but I put this together as it was a personal experience of my youth. Being in this trade I used to be in and out of these types of enterprises on a daily basis but thought it worth recording as I am sure nothing like this exists these days, simply because the old buildings I knew now thankfully no longer exist.

 

My first recollections first go back to the mid 1930’s were as a toddler on Saturday mornings I would struggle up several flights of stairs in these old buildings, carrying a small brown paper parcel of spoons or forks, (helping our delivery man, we made unfinished spoons and forks) and of course reveling in the attention I created with all the female staff to a chorus of ahrs.

 

In my young days in the spoon and fork making industry we used to sell our blanks ‘to the trade’, but these people ( Little Mesters ) did a D.I.Y operation and used to buy our unfinished cutlery made of nickel silver and take it to small individual businesses comprising anything from a husband and wife to up seven or eight female staff (all were independent businesses), working sometimes in Dickensian conditions in old converted tenement buildings where the sharp edges ( fash )around the edges of the spoon and forks created by the previous shaping and stamping processes were removed on small grindstones , the girls were called ‘Filers’.

 

If lucky collecting the their wares on the same day as time was critical, the Little Mesters would then go round (if not on the same premises) to another shop of ‘Dolliers’, this was a similar set up comprising mostly of women who again using rotating wheels this time made of tightly bound disks of cloth soaked in a special ‘fat’ polish. The filer’s grindstone marks had to be removed until smooth ready for the next stage which was electro plating.

 

Once again the goods would taken on to an electroplating firm for this to be done, meanwhile finished knives would have been purchased and also new boxes from a box maker and when all came together successfully they would then assemble into canteens of cutlery and hopefully be selling then in the market by Saturday !

 

Before the major rebuilding started the streets around the city contained a lot of very old tenement type buildings which had over many years been converted into work rooms.

Two, three and even four stories high, and still retaining the original front door which opened out immediately onto the pavement and also the original small paned casement windows with internally most rooms being their original small size.

 

On entering the enclosed staircase was in front of you with a door on the left or right to the lower room or rooms, at the next landing another door on the left or right and so on upwards.

Inside these rooms you may find one man with believe it or not an open coke hearth making small tools, or a hand operated ‘fly’ press in some for pressing or stamping various cutlery or hollowware, this was also the habitat of many of the small silversmiths as all their products were usually hand made. With all these heat requiring processes these buildings were absolute fire traps, I cannot recall if there was a ‘back room or kitchen’ to the premised as many were built in the back to back style so there may have been no backs to these properties, the ‘back’ could have been another property built on and facing into the next street !

 

In some buildings a few rooms had been expanded I guess by knocking through to the wall to the next room to allow a row of perhaps six grind stones for filing or buffing all served from a shaft with pulleys under the bench that carried a flat belt up to each wheel, and all driven by one electric motor, and no guards and no extractors, health and safety would have had a nervous breakdown if they has been around in those days.

 

One particular example was Cissy and her husband who were filers, they had one room on a second floor with two small windows, there was no fireplace as I remember as their pot bellied coke stove’s chimney crossed the ceiling and exited just above one of the windows.

In winter when the stove was lit the chimney draft was insufficient until well alight and so the room filled with choking acrid smoke and you could not even see Cissy but you could hear her working away quite unconcerned, paid piece work the less output she did the less pay she got !

 

As most Sheffielder’s will know you could always identify a dollier in the street, with no protective clothing supplied the practice was for the girls to make brown paper sheets into aprons with their arms and legs also wrapped in brown paper. However they could not protect their faces and the ‘fat’ used on the rag wheels that polished the cutlery was colored either red, green or black depending on the grade of finish needed and it usually finished up as a coating around their mouths ! With no washroom facilities there was little option but to shop mid day and also walk home as they were, but give them credit no matter what, a girl would always try and freshen up her lipstick if nothing else before leaving work.

Edited September 3, 2014 by westmoors
better grammer

[DUFFEMS 56]

I recognise these conditions from my grandfather's place of work. He worked as a "dry stone grinder" grinding forks as his father/grandfather had also, they had a "shop" as they called it in the Union Wheel, it burned down.

Latterly my grandfather worked for Dickinson's on Guernsey Road, I used to go to meet him sometimes and I couldn't believe the conditions he worked in. The small pokey windows had very few panes of glass, there was no heating or ventilation and my grandfather didn't wear any kind of protective clothing, the sparks flew everywhere and his skin/eyes were covered in "motes" which were fine pieces of metal.

His "shop" which was 2 flights up had an outside metal staircase which was very unstable, it barely touched the walls in places and even had treads missing ('elf and safety nightmare).

My grandmother worked for Humphreys on Hill Street (I think, doing it from my childhood memory).

They both worked beyond 65, my grandfather was still working up to his death when he was 73 no gold watch for them, not even a bottle of sherry when they finally retired.

[willybite 10]

I recognise these conditions from my grandfather's place of work. He worked as a "dry stone grinder" grinding forks as his father/grandfather had also, they had a "shop" as they called it in the Union Wheel, it burned down.

Latterly my grandfather worked for Dickinson's on Guernsey Road, I used to go to meet him sometimes and I couldn't believe the conditions he worked in. The small pokey windows had very few panes of glass, there was no heating or ventilation and my grandfather didn't wear any kind of protective clothing, the sparks flew everywhere and his skin/eyes were covered in "motes" which were fine pieces of metal.

His "shop" which was 2 flights up had an outside metal staircase which was very unstable, it barely touched the walls in places and even had treads missing ('elf and safety nightmare).

My grandmother worked for Humphreys on Hill Street (I think, doing it from my childhood memory).

They both worked beyond 65, my grandfather was still working up to his death when he was 73 no gold watch for them, not even a bottle of sherry when they finally retired.

hiya where I lived on bath st I remember in the 40s/50s

these little mesters were all round some were on our st,some we used to watch working down Bowden st.

I also remember in the late 50s when there were bad floods down abbeydale we had a job repairing the river walls down millhouses, one time we entered the grounds of, at the time Sheffield parks where they parked their gear, we looked round the workshops and were not use since before the war it was just as if the workers had finished work and not come back.

Edited September 3, 2014 by willybite

[westmoors 11]

I moved from spoons and forks to engineering files, the type of processes were very similar and the conditions in this industry were almost identical to the cutlery makers also allied to this were the agricultural tool makers. I remember I think at Tyzac's they had scythe grinders, they were seated on a saddle literally on top of a 3 or 4 foot diameter grindstone which ran half submerged in a water bath.

The grinder had to lean well over the wheel as he hollow ground the long blades by eye alone while frequently wiping the grit and swarf from around his mouth, a very unhealthy occupation and potentially risky.

 

One reported incident was when a wheel split while running, half of it shot out behind him while the other half went upwards through the roof and dropped down into an adjoining shed and I believe caused a fatality. the cause was suspected as an unbalance wheel which had absorbed water while stationary.

[TimeBandit52 10]

Hi westmoors do you remember "Swiggy" he was one of the grinders you mentioned. I served my apprenticeship there on the welding shop from 67 to 73.

[junkyardmagi 10]

Hi westmoors do you remember "Swiggy" he was one of the grinders you mentioned. I served my apprenticeship there on the welding shop from 67 to 73.

 

He was my grandad, I just took my daughter to abbydale industrial hamlet to learn about him (he told me he did his apprenticeship there. We are actually thinking about making a short film about him

[hobinfoot 25]

My grandad was a Little Mester he made scissors. My mum would sometimes take me to his workshop just off West St on our way home from the Children's I remember the nail scissors he made I think some family members still have some.

[carosio 187]

I moved from spoons and forks to engineering files, the type of processes were very similar and the conditions in this industry were almost identical to the cutlery makers also allied to this were the agricultural tool makers. I remember I think at Tyzac's they had scythe grinders, they were seated on a saddle literally on top of a 3 or 4 foot diameter grindstone which ran half submerged in a water bath.

The grinder had to lean well over the wheel as he hollow ground the long blades by eye alone while frequently wiping the grit and swarf from around his mouth, a very unhealthy occupation and potentially risky.

 

One reported incident was when a wheel split while running, half of it shot out behind him while the other half went upwards through the roof and dropped down into an adjoining shed and I believe caused a fatality. the cause was suspected as an unbalance wheel which had absorbed water while stationary.

 

When I was 16 I had a Saturday morning job for a small firm in Portland Works, Randall St where I was dry grinding cold chisels on a very big and wide grindstone. I was sat astride a wooden saddle the front of which was chained to the floor in case of breakage.