Anyone know what the 'little mesters shop' is/was ?

[kidneystone]

On 19/02/2007 at 19:00, Sheffield History said:

 

Just found this

 

Does anyone know what the Little Mesters Shop was/is and whereabouts it was ?

As it is now  

 

[Old rider]

On 20/02/2007 at 13:00, codeyes said:

The Little Mesters were the backbone of Sheffield's cutlery industry and were instrumental in helping the city achieve its worldwide reputation for quality craftsmanship. The phrase Little Mester is a regional term used to describe Sheffield's self employed cutlers who rented space in factories and had their finished goods sold by the factory owner. However the term is also more widely applied to almost any self-employed craftsman working in steel or metal.

 

Little Mesters were an essential part of the unique system of organisation that developed in the cutlery industry during the late eighteenth century. Before this time cutlers made their wares through to completion and were responsible for finding their own markets. But the trade boom of the late eighteenth century led to a huge diversification of products and saw the introduction of specialisation.

 

 

Little Mesters and the cutlery industry

 

Each type of knife now required three different specialist craftsmen to complete the job. The forger fashioned the blade, the grinder gave the blade its edge and the cutler finished the blade and fitted the handle. This system was co-ordinated in one of two ways - by cutlers or factors.

 

Cutlers who could afford to obtain commissions from forgers and grinders were able to complete the item and sell it themselves and many cutlers became very prosperous. But the more usual method was for factors (people with capital who hitherto had been outside the cutlery industry) to farm out the work to craftsmen and then sell the finished goods under the factor's name.

For your interest I have put a picture of blade forging in the pictures on this site titled "Little Mesters" The picture is a digitised picture of a glass slide taken by my Grandfather who was put handles on knives.

When at work I came into contact with a customer in Solingen, the cutlery town of Germany, he told me that the little mester system still took place in Solingen. He also told me that their little mesters were using high tech machinery due to the German banks being prepared to invest in German workers small businesses.