Quoting from the author's Acknowledgements, "Sheffield's legacy is not just in the tangible dust-covered records or faded photographs rescued from destruction, but in the living art form of their craft that endures and remains the symbol of what was the centre of the cutlery world for well over a hundred years."

* BOOK REVIEW *
Reviewed by Geoffrey Tweedale

A string of glossy and desirable collectors’ books have recently depicted the golden age of Sheffield knives: from Adams et al’s, The Antique Bowie Knife Book (1990) to the more recent Flayderman tome on The Bowie Knife (2004). This volume belongs to that genre. It is written by the late David Hayden-Wright, an English antique knife dealer and collector.

It is a weighty and lavish production, with 329 pages and 300 photographs, mostly in color. Hundreds of knives are displayed, which make it – blade for blade – probably the best value collector’s book on the market. It has numerous chapters, and although the emphasis is on the artifacts, the text ranges widely from the early history of the industry to specific knife types. Readers will be immediately attracted to the photographs, which reach a very high standard. The labor involved in the photography for this book by a man who is mysteriously credited as ‘John’ must have been enormous.

The text, though, is not quite up to the same standard. The chapters are somewhat disjointed and the author strays into other areas besides English knives (such as axes, London dock fakers, and razors). The text has spelling and grammatical errors, which should have been spotted by an assiduous editor, and the history sections are not always very informative or accurate. The captions for the photographs are also sometimes uneven, with the occasional photograph reversed or the same knives appearing more than once (admittedly an easy mistake to make in a book of this size).

The author’s great love is Joseph Rodgers & Sons. Rodgers’ pre-eminence is soon established, not least by several pages that show the company’s framed royal warrants! Yet since no one (least of all knife collectors) has ever contested Rodgers’ reputation, one wonders why the point needs laboring so much. By genuflecting before Rodgers’ royal warrants, Hayden-Wright neglects to provide information on other manufacturers, who – on the evidence presented in this volume alone – were capable of equalling (and occasionally surpassing) Rodgers.

Hayden-Wright is especially dismissive of certain ‘expert authors’ (present company included) who have explored the manuscript and contemporary published records, which Hayden-Wright believes exist in vast quantities. The book’s bibliography therefore ignores most of the best knife literature, including the work of Simon Moore, David Hey, Bill Brown, Bernard Levine, and Norm Flayderman. Yet this volume shows the pitfalls of relying too heavily on artifacts, which simply reflect – as one would expect – the author’s collecting interests or the fruits of his factory clear-outs in the 1960s. Hayden-Wright’s private collection is eclectic, but many makers are missing and some (such as Rodgers, Petty, and Lockwood) are over-represented.

On the other hand, a whole chapter is devoted to defending dealer-friend Richard Washer from the charge that he once shipped counterfeit I*XL bowies to the USA. The text is intended to exonerate all involved, but I did not find it entirely convincing, especially when I read the later chapter on bowies. Hayden-Wright’s collection of bowie knives, which are reproduced alongside some dated and quaint folklore about James Bowie, seems in my opinion to be a very mixed bag. The author generously captions many knives ‘circa Victorian’, but several look of more recent vintage or not entirely vintage at all (see for example p. 89, p. 260, p. 286, p. 292, p. 300 and back cover, and especially the clunky and garish I*XL California Knife on p. 280, once apparently in Washer’s possession).

Fortunately, the good things in this book are very good. In some chapters, there are so many photographs of top-quality knives that it is almost too much of a good thing. There is a dazzling section on exhibition knives, most of which are seen here for the first time. I was pleasantly surprised to see some remarkable exhibition pieces produced by Petty’s, which was a small back-street factory that I saw demolished in the 1980s. It is also interesting to read this book’s account of that period in Sheffield’s history, when the old companies began to implode and when collectors and enthusiasts such as Hayden-Wright made a ‘killing’, but also provided a priceless service in rescuing many treasures from the rubbish tips.

This book is not quite the reference work that the author intended (I suggest that it should be consulted with caution). But it is absorbing and thought-provoking and at the end of the day one comes back to the craftsmanship that Hayden-Wright has so patiently collected. What awesome knives those cutlers made! Hayden-Wright says in the Preface that he hoped to fire the reader’s imagination and glorify Sheffield craftsmanship. In that he has succeeded.

Geoffrey Tweedale is the author of the Sheffield Knife Book (1996).

Hardcover, 336 pp., full color photos

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$95.00