Collection: Ken Hawley Collection

Collection-level records:

• Collection history (Collection development policy)

  The Hawley Collection was formed by Ken Hawley (1927 – 2014) who, having spent a lifetime selling tools in his own shop in Sheffield, had acquired an unrivalled knowledge about the Sheffield tool manufacturing, cutlery and silversmithing industries. The Hawley Collection covers the range of articles described as ‘Light Trades’, as opposed to the ‘Heavy Trades’ of steel making and manipulation. The ‘Light Trades’ include the manufacture of cutting tools, percussion tools, measuring and marking tools, cutlery and flatware, silverware, surgical instruments and related supporting trades. The Hawley Collection includes examples of finished and partfinished tools and cutlery and the tools that made the tools and cutlery, together with associated trade catalogues, ephemera, photographs, audio-visual materials and archives.

  The collection was housed with the University of Sheffield from 1995 to 2008, after which it was located in a specially-built extension to Kelham Island Museum, part of Sheffield Industrial Museums Trust. It is operated entirely by volunteers.

  Source: Collection development policy

  Date: 2014

  Licence: CC BY-NC

• Collection overview (Collection development policy)

  The collection covers the range of tool manufacturing and the cutlery and silversmithing industries. The focus of the collection is on items from Sheffield and South Yorkshire; however the collection also holds and collects comparative material from elsewhere in the United Kingdom and the rest of the world.

  The collection includes finished products, work in progress, raw materials and tools that made tools, together with printed materials such as trade catalogues, price lists, advertisements, archive material such as designs, cost books and correspondence and audio-visual material such as photographs, film, video and audio material.

  There are relatively few loans in to the collection, the most notable being the Stanley Millennium Year Knife (an exhibition knife started in 1821 by Joseph Rodgers of Sheffield and now holding over 2000 blades), and the Simon Barley saw collection with over 1270 specimens.

  Objects

  The object collection contains all classes of tools, particularly edge tools, cutlery, measuring instruments and silversmiths’ tools. This collection comprises over 100,000 items including finished products, work in progress items, raw materials and ‘tools that make tools’ and as such represents a comprehensive record of the processes and people involved in these industries. Most of the material dates from c1800 to the present day and has direct local and regional associations, in the main collected locally or given by local people.

  The collection holds some notable groups, for example, the UK’s largest public collection of micrometers, a unique collection of boxwood rules, together with examples of work in progress, trade tools and most importantly standards of foreign measures dating from 1768, early examples of the world’s first steel measuring tape dating to 1845.

  Printed Material

  The collection also holds a range of printed material relating to the manufacture of tools, cutlery and silverware. There are over 5,000 catalogues for British and foreign hand tools, machine tools, cutlery, steel and surgical instruments. There are also firms histories and trade literature and ephemera such as newspaper cuttings, notes, pamphlets, price lists and records of some unions and employers’ organisations.

  The Hawley Collection holds probably the most comprehensive run of the Sheffield Illustrated Lists, (second edition onwards), which details the diverse range of material manufactures in Sheffield. The catalogue collection also includes some notable 19th century illustrated examples typical of the period.

  Graphics

  The collection also contains artwork for promotions and trade catalogues, commissioned designs for silverware, production drawings and plans. Examples from the collection include the drawings of Wallace Smythe, a noted in-house designer in the 1920s for Mappin & Webb of Sheffield.

  Archives

  The collection contains archive material, for example letters, day books, order books, production records, patents and outworker records relating to tool manufacture, cutlery and the silversmithing industries. The archive material has mostly been acquired at the same time as object collections to complement the contextual knowledge and understanding of the trades.

  Audio-Visual Material

  The collection contains over 3000 photographs and a range of 35mm slides, videos, 8mm and 16mm film which record the people, places and processes involved in the tool manufacture, cutlery and silversmithing industries. The collection also contains over 100 recorded interviews with workers and craftsmen covering the manufacturing processes and histories of trades.

  Source: Collection development policy

  Date: 2014

  Licence: CC BY-NC