Lenton and Rusby, Manufacturer of Optical, Mathematical & Philisophical Instruments, Waingate

[Ponytail]

Lenton and Rusby, Manufacturer of Optical, Mathematical and Philisophical Instruments, No. 8 Waingate. 

Advertisement from Illustrated Guide to Sheffield, Pawson and Brailsford. 1862

Established Waingate 1817. 

1852 Directory

Lenton, John, optician & jeweller No. 8 Waingate. 

Advertisement 1859 Melville Directory

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1951 Lenton & Rusby, Apex Works Elm Lane. 

Lenton Syring Ltd., Apex Works Elm Lane. 

https://www.gracesguide.co.uk/Lenton_and_Rusby

 

Waingate properties to be demolished

https://www.picturesheffield.com/frontend.php?keywords=Ref_No_increment;EQUALS;s20302&pos=5&action=zoom&id=22817

Lenton & Rusby, Court 2 Waingate

https://www.picturesheffield.com/frontend.php?keywords=Ref_No_increment;EQUALS;s09956&pos=3&action=zoom&id=13047

https://www.picturesheffield.com/frontend.php?keywords=Ref_No_increment;EQUALS;s09957&pos=4&action=zoom&id=13048

https://www.picturesheffield.com/frontend.php?keywords=Ref_No_increment;EQUALS;s07953&pos=2&action=zoom&id=11107

 

[Ponytail]

Rodger's Directory 1839

Lenton, John, 8 Waingate, optician

 

Whites,Directory 1849. 

Lenton, John, optician, 8 Waingate. 

Whites Directory 1852

Lenton, John, optician and jeweller, 8 Waingate. 

 

Whites Directory 1856

Lenton, John, optician and jeweller, 8 Waingate. 

 

Advertisement Whites Directory 1862.

Whites Directory 1862

Lenton and Rusby, opticians, 8 Waingate. 

Rusby, John, optician (Lenton & Rusby) h. 8 Waingate. 

 

Whites Directory 1879. 

Lenton and Rusby, opticians, 1 Court 2 Waingate. 

Rusby, John, optician, (Lenton & R) h. 70 Blake Street, Upperthorpe. 

 

 

[Lysanderix]

Lenton and Styring built an optical instruments factory specifically for the production of lenses for military binoculars and telescopes . This was opened shortly before the outbreak of war in 1939.
 

The factory had a reinforced concrete area ,designed as a precaution against damage from bombing and was surrounded by gardens and grassed areas. One of its early  managers was a specialist who had fled from Hitler’s Germany.  
 

The factory was on Elm Lane, Sheffield Lane Top.

[Edmund]

John Lenton founded Lenton and Rusby around 1800 in Pond street, but moved to Waingate after marrying Elizabeth Hounsfield in 1817.  Both John and Elizabeth were interested in novel uses of grinding wheels and uses of horn as a raw material.  Elizabeth was probably born a hundred years before her time.  She was a craftsman like John, but also a forceful salesperson, travelling all over Britain and Europe on selling missions. When she retired to Scarborough she became one of the first to advertise spectacles (Illustrated Scarborough Mercury 21st July 1855).  She occasionally returned to Sheffield to encourage the business and died at 8 Waingate in October 1867, John having died in 1856.

Elizabeth left the works to John Rusby who had married her daughter Mary Ann in 1852.  Rusby was a brilliant salesman in Europe and always preferred to have his goods made by Sheffield craftsmen, rather than by cheaper French labour, and this export bias initiated the firm's long connection with the Tariff Reform movement. In the slump following the Franco-Prussian war (1870-1) Elizabeth had lost a considerable amount of her fortune and at this point the Lenton and Rusby family financed the lens manufacturing of Thomas Styring and Son, hence the trade connections between Lenton and Rusby (frames) and T. Styring (lenses).  John and Mary Ann Rusby's daughter Lily was born in 1855 and in September 1881 married Charles Percy Styring (the "Son" in Thomas Styring and Son). In 1914 C.P.Styring built the first modern optical factory in Europe on the Waingate freehold site of the original premises built by Lenton, and were probably the only industrial firm in Sheffield to still hold Don fishing rights from the Norfolk Estates.

After the death of C.P.Styring in 1925, it was realised that the days of manufacturing in Sheffield were over, and German subsidiaries were formed in the Ratherow area. When Hitler came to power there was a breakdown of communications with these firms, so an entirely new factory, the Apex Works, was built at Sheffield Lane Top, claimed to be the most advanced light industrial plant in England. On the basis of this experience, Ernest Lenton Styring and Miss Winifred Styring (the offspring of C.P. and Lily) invested in further light industrial centres in Rockingham street, and in Leeds and Leicester. The Waingate factory was lost in the Blitz, and their reserve factory in Liverpool was bombed just after it was built. The London premises had been closed and the associated T. Styring and Son also suffered damage. During the war up to a million pairs of spectacles were delivered to the Government, but this was only a small part of their wartime achievements.

The postwar Health Act's provision of spectacles assisted the firm, and they reorganised their Apex Works. However the same Act also encouraged lower quality imports, but Lenton and Rusby determined that they would not have their export business ruined by the Government for a second time. By 1950 Miss Winifred Styring was the senior managing director, and Ernest Lenton Styring travelled the world as salesman.

[Lysanderix]

As an aside, the factory on Elm Lane was latterly the site of Jonas and Colver’s small tools facility.