Catalogue description Samuel Osborn and Company, Sheffield

Contains:

Letter books, 1852 - 1911 (Osborn/1).

Letters and orders from Kiangnam Arsenal, China, 1868 - 1869 (Osborn/2).

Minute books and Directors' records, 1906 - 1948 (Osborn/3).

Cash books, 1852 - 1969 (Osborn/4).

Balance books and sheets, 1887 - 1920 (Osborn/5).

Partnership journals, 1869 - 1919 (Osborn/6).

Private cash book, 1862 - 1866 (Osborn/7).

Departmental and general journals, 1899 - 1920 (Osborn/8).

Ledgers, 1860 - 1969 (Osborn/9).

Cost books, 1877 - 1892 (Osborn/10).

Nominal ledger binders, 1930 - 1958 (Osborn/11).

Steel and tool manual ledger, 1959 - 1968 (Osborn/12).

Unidentified ledgers, 1928 - 1954 (Osborn/13).

Wages and salaries books, 1873 - 1946 (Osborn/14).

Overseas trade and agencies, 1897 - 1956 (Osborn/15).

Bought journal, 1901 - 1905 (Osborn/16).

Inventories of plant and stock books, 1887 - 1951 (Osborn/17).

Visitors' books, 1949 - 1955 (Osborn/18).

Technical records (alloy steels), 1884 - 1929 (Osborn/19).

Trade catalogues 1873 - [1950], (Osborn/20).

Scrapbooks and historical notes and papers, 1835 - 1967 (Osborn/21).

Miscellaneous Osborn items, 1903 - 1969 (Osborn/22).

Burys and Company Limited, 1865 - 1951 (Osborn/23).

B. M. Jones and Company Incorporated, 1918 - 1920 (Osborn/24).

C. R. Denton Steel and Tool Company Limited, 1965 - 1970 (Osborn/25).

Titan Trackwork Company Limited, 1923 - 1928 (Osborn/26).

Brayshaw Furnaces And Tools Limited, 1915 - 1954 (Osborn/27).

Miscellanea, 1817 - 1970 (Osborn/28).

Also includes diary of an unidentified traveller, 1817 (Osborn/28/1).

Retro-conversion of a paper catalogue. The majority of this collection is held offsite, so this has been a desk based exercise. The original arrangement of the 1977/1978 catalogue has largely been retained, although some duplicates within the original paper catalogue that concerned items that could be classed as more than one area have been removed, and the overlapping areas noted in the description field. Items that were retained by the depositor, but noted in the original paper catalogue, have not been included in the new catalogue.

Samuel Osborn and Company, Sheffield

Open

Company Secretary, K. Siddall, Samuel Osborn and Company Limited. They were deposited at Sheffield Archives 27 Oct 1977.

• Steel
• Metallurgy
• Steel industry
• Steelworks
• Forges
• Tool and die makers
• Sheffield; Samuel Osborn and Company
• Sheffield, Osborn Steels, Ecclesfield; [c.1945 - c.1980]
• Mushet; Edward Maxwell Tom (1842 - 1908)
• Mushet; Robert Forester (1811 - 1891)
• Osborn; Samuel (1826-1891)
• Mushet; Henry Charles Brooklyn (1845-1923)
• Sheffield, West Riding of Yorkshire

The history of Samuel Osborn and Co. was charted by T. A. Seed in Pioneers for a Century, 1852 – 1952.

The firm was founded in 1852 at 182 Broad Lane, Sheffield, by Samuel Osborn, (1826 - 1891), as a file manufactory. The works were initially called the Clyde Works, but later this became the Brookhill Works. From 1856 or 1857, Osborn began to make his own steel at a crucible furnace at 57 Carver Street, a furnace in Pea Croft, and a tilt and forge in Philadelphia in Sheffield. In 1862, Osborn bought the "Hand & Heart" trade mark which had previously been granted in 1833 to Thomas Ward, pen and pocket- knife manufacturer. In 1867, Osborn took into partnership his brother-in-law, Henry Fawcett, and in 1871, John Edward Fawcett, trading now as Samuel Osborn & Company.

In 1868 Osborn purchased further premises from Shortridge, Howell & Company Limited in the Wicker, Sheffield. These premises were renamed the Clyde Steel Works, and had converting and crucible furnaces.

The fortunes of the company were established from 1871 by the alliance with Robert Forester Mushet (1811 - 1891). Mushet had, in 1868, invented a self-hardening steel alloy by the addition of Wolfram or Tungsten. This was superior for the manufacture of tools to the carbon steel in use, which had to be immersed in water for hardening, which could result in cracking, which the new process eliminated. In 1871, Mushet's Titanic Steel and Iron Company Limited, (Coleford, Forest of Dean, Gloucestershire.) was heading towards liquidation. Samuel Osborn undertook to market "Robert Mushet's Special Steel" (abbreviated to "R.M.S."). This was the first development in special alloy steels.

The agreement between Osborn and Mushet was that Osborn had the sole right to manufacture R. M. S. and Mushet would receive a royalty for every ton sold. In order for the technical details of the process of making R. M. S. to remain secret from competitors, some of the treatment and preparation of the material was continued at Mushet’s site in the Forest of Dean in Gloucestershire, and even in Osborn’s factory some of the work was to be done “off-the-premises”. Robert Forester Mushet’s sons, Henry and Edward moved to Sheffield in 1871 to supervise the Steel Department of Samuel Osborn and Company, but Robert Forester Mushet never visited Sheffield himself.

In 1875 Osborn went into partnership with George Wood, of Wardsend, George Jackson Smith, Robert Woodward, and Arnold Pye-Smith. Soon after, Pye-Smith established the first London office at 32 Gt. St. Helens, moving to Philpot Lane in 1882.

The firms’ earliest customers had been in the western districts of Scotland, but by 1875 Osborn was travelling to Canada and the United States of America to promote orders. The firm also supplied the increasing number of gold mines in South Africa. R. M. S. dominated the steel tool market in the late nineteenth century and established the fortune of the business.

After Samuel Osborn’s death in 1891, his sons William Fawcett Osborn, Samuel Osborn Jr., and Frederick Marmaduke Osborn would continue to develop the business throughout the twentieth century.

In c.1945 the company became known as Osborn Steels, based in Ecclesfield. By 1962 the Osborn Group consisted of 21 companies employing about 4,500 and its main products were high grade tool and construction steel for the engineering industries, particularly tool and stainless steel, high grade steel castings and forgings and engineers’ cutting tools. There were also Group companies manufacturing special steels in the Bradford area, Low Moor Alloy Steelworks Limited and Low Moor Fine Steels Limited. Overseas Group companies were established in South Africa, Canada, India, Rhodesia (later Zimbabwe), Australia and Israel. In most cases these started as selling companies but began to manufacture locally and developed with the companies in which they were situated. In 1980 the company merged with Egar Allen Balfour Steel Limited and was acquired by Aurora Steels Limited.

The following are abstracted details of the history of the company and the career of Samuel Osborn.

Partnerships:

1867 Samuel Osborn and Company.

1905 Samuel Osborn and Company Limited (private limited liability).

1920 Public limited liability.

Works:

1852 Clyde Works - later renamed Brookhill Works.

1868 Hartford Works in the Wicker - renamed Clyde Steel and Iron Works.

1885 Rutland Works in Rutland Road (formerly W.S. Butcher and Company).

1896 Walker's Yard in the Wicker.

1943 Mushet Tool Works.

Reorganisation in 1947-1948:

The company was divided into the following divisions:

Osborn Foundry & Engineering Company Limited, (steel castings);

Titanic Steel Company Limited ("R.M.S." and other special tool steels);

Osborn-Mushet Tools Limited (engineers' tools and files);

Burys and Company Limited (steel sheets).

Subsidiaries:

1911 Titan Trackwork Company Limited (in association with the Railway and General Engineering Company of Nottingham).

1915 Burys and Company Limited.

Overseas offices:

South Africa:

1894 agency agreement with William Hosken and Company, of Johannesburg;

1911 Branch Offices;

1919 Samuel Osborn (South Africa) Limited, Johannesburg.

Rhodesia:

1950 Samuel Osborn (Rhodesia) Limited.

Canada:

1933 Samuel Osborn (Canada) Limited.

India:

1931 Samuel Osborn (India) Limited.

Far East:

1928 branch offices at Shanghai and Hong Kong.

United States of America:

B. M. Jones acted as agent from c.1880 or earlier.