Reply by Sue OldsWidow on January 30, 2013 at 21:39

The Lesson of Sheffield Spirit by Thomas C. Sheehan

Does the man live whose daddy, granddaddy, or great granddaddy did not shave with a Wade & Butcher razor?  Or whose mammy or grand mammies did not use Wade & Butcher cutlery?  All of my life I have heard the name.  All of my life Sheffield, Cutlery and Steel have been synonymous terms; and in the center has always stood "Wade & Butcher."

So the most natural thing for me to have done when I visited Sheffield last August was to go to see the Wade & Butcher plant.

When I looked over their wonderful old models and saw the beautiful new ones that they are turning out, I was hungry for an opportunity to secure these exceptional patterns.

I wanted to carry the manufacture by improved methods to a point where we could capture for this line all of the markets of the world.  I recognized that the superior quality, beauty of finish and design, and all that goes to make a cutlery business a real cutlery business, were here.  So I asked the question - "Can we buy it?" and we did.

There are some wonderful lessons in Sheffield for the mechanic of to-day.  One sees there the best of the old and the best of the new.  The little master is still at work in a little room with a couple of assistants just as he was one hundred and fifty years ago.  He may be grinding or polishing knives, razors, or other articles of cutlery; or he may be forging them.  One sees him still beating them out on the anvil with a boy or his striker.  Or one sees him with the old strap-lifted hammer with the strap thrown over a pulley, acting as his own striker.  Again he may be seen with the latest model of steam hammer close to his forge with all assistance eliminated.  And a chat with him reveals the spirit of the old American workshop of forty or fifty years ago.

The soul of this workman is in every article that he turns out.  He earnestly believes that nobody on earth is doing any better than he is.  He is an honest workman, this Englishman, and while he may belong to a union, or be dreaming some of the radical dreams, back of it all is his British blood; and you can rest assured that as he is the product of hundreds of years of British training, irrespective of how the wind blows, he will insist with dogged determination upon the supremacy of the British Empire.

I had an opportunity to talk with these men.  I had an opportunity to contrast the difference that exists between their problems and ours.

They have no serious problem in England.  They are dealing absolutely with their own blood.  The problem from that angle is eliminated.  As far as America is concerned, if we want to succeed - as we will in the end, our problem must be tackled absolutely from the standpoint of soul.

We have the blood of so many races - what it stands for and what it has assimilated, to contend with. We are compelled as a consequence first of all to visualize the soul of the individual.  And as we continue to build spirit from this angle, we must in the end develop workmen the equal if not the superior of any other race.

I spent many hours in the Sheffield workshop, and I can only wish that our pampered American workmen could have an opportunity to investigate the conditions under which in many instances the British workman operates.

There is a decided change in the attitude of the English manufacturer, the English engineer, and the English workman, toward the improvements that can and may be made in the various plants.  The Englishmen are investigating the conditions which exist all over the world.  They have a bill to pay - an enormous war bill, and they know that the only way to pay it is by selling the products of their hands in the markets of the world.

I am perfectly satisfied of this, and you can put it right down in the back of your head and keep it there, that the one big bet in the world to-day in the come-back after this war is England.  She has the spirit and she is going to it with a will.  The wise man of to-day is reading the story of to-morrow in the lines of nonpareil type which he sees, and paying very little attention to the headlines; and the big story of England in this hour is the story that you and I would miss if we were on the outside looking in.  One really has to get an opportunity to get on the inside and look out.

The Durham Duplex Razor Company is remodeling the old Wade & Batcher plant in Sheffield, and it will house Wade & Butcher business and Durham Duplex business as well.  This is going to give us an opportunity to develop a plant of cutlery making machinery which we hope will be the equal of the razor blade machinery that we have in Jersey City, which is making it possible for us to sell to the public the wonderful shaving edge that we are putting on the Durham Duplex blade.

I wonder if the reader realizes just what this means to the writer.  Have you ever played with a piece of special machinery from the day the idea was conceived until the cams, gears, toggles and whatnot properly functioned and the article to be manufactured automatically handled came out of the delivery end the kind of article you had dreamed of, and when checking up on the saving of labor and material found that you had made a success?  While we hope to build and know that we will build the largest and best cutlery business in the world, the real joy is going to be in the working out of the problem.

The writer had an opportunity while in England to talk with the business men of Sheffield twice at a dinner and luncheon of the Rotary Club; and it would be impossible to describe the kindly courtesy that was extended every step of the way.  There is no baiting of America in England and very little criticism.  The Englishman in the last analysis is not an ill-advised or an unthinking critic.