Page:The National Gazetteer - A Topographical Dictionary of the British Islands, Volume 3.djvu/450

SHEFFIELD. 438 SHEFFIELD. Duko of Alva, were settled by the Earl of Shrews- bury, then the queen's chamberlain, on his own estate of Sheffield, -in order to develop the manufacture of cutlery, which had been introduced previous to the reign of Edward III., as we learn from Chaucer, who speaks of the " Sheffield whittles." In the reign of James I. the Sheffield estates passed by the marriage of the Lady Alethea Talbot, granddaughter of the above- mentioned earl, to Thomas Howard, Earl of Arundel, whose descendants, the dukes of Norfolk, still retain possession of the lordship. In the same reign an Act of incorporation was obtained by the cutlers of Sheffield, entitled, " An Act for the good order and government of the makers of knives, sickles, shears, scissors, and other cutlery wares in Hallamshire and parts near ad- joining." At the commencement of the Civil War the house of Howard garrisoned the castle for the king, but it was speedily obliged to surrender to Sir John Gell, who held it for the parliament till the advance of the Duke of Newcastle, at the head of the royal army, com- pelled the parliamentarians to retire to Derbyshire. The town and castle were then committed to the charge of Sir William Saville, who caused cannon to be cast in the neighbouring iron factories for the defence of his entrenchments ; and the royalists continued to hold it till after the battle of Marston Moor on 2nd July, 1644, when Major-General Crawford forced it to capitulate on lOlh August, 1644. In 1648 it was dismantled by order of parliament, and no vestiges of this once famous strong- hold now exist, except in the names of Castle-hill, Castle- green, and Castle-fold. The manor house continued to be the occasional residence of its noble owner till 1706, when Thomas Duke of Norfolk ordered it to be dis- mantled, and the park broken up into furms. In the beginning of the 18th century the trade of the district had made so much progress that the number of persons engaged in it was estimated at 6,000, and the yearly value of the goods above 100,000. It was, however, about fifty years later, when Sheffield became the mart of Hancock's plated goods, that the great development of trade took place. At this period mail coaches were started for London, and merchants for the first time opened direct communication with the Continent. The refining of the precious metals and the manufacture of silver plate were next introduced, and an assay office opened in the town, at which as much as 6,000 Ibs. weight of silver are said to have been hall-marked in one year. The greatest discovery of all was, however, the compo- sition called "Britannia metal," which speedily super- seded pewter, and gave to the town a new staple manu- facture. The lead works on the Porter were likewise established, and silk and cotton mills set up, but these last did not flourish. During the present century the employment of steam in the grinding of cutlery, the invention of a new hard white metal, called " German silver," and the application of the process of electro- plating, have raised Sheffield to the first rank amongst manufacturing towns. At the great international Exhi- bition of 1851, the manufacturers of this town carried off 60 council or prize medals, and in the subsequent Exhi- bitions of Paris, in 1856, and of London, in 1862, they fully maintained their pre-eminence. In addition to the staple trades before mentioned, various other branches of manufacture are successfully carried on, especially in iron and steel, as edge tools of every description, agricultural implements, files, hafts and scales, razors, saws, scissors, anvils, awl blades, chains, clasps, port- able forges, stoves, grates, fenders, fire-irons, steam boilers, engines, railway carriage tires, axles, wheels, buffers, springs, powder flasks, saw handles, magnets, nails, needles, steel pens, rivets, articles in glass, brass, ivory, bone, horn, and pearl ; Sheffield also contains nu- merous chasers, die sinkers, engravers, type founders, gold and silver smiths, jewellers, opticians, turners, moulders, and coal miners and quarries. Some of the longest-established and most eminent firms are the Atlas steel and ironworks, Saunderson's and Greaves's steel works, Rodgers's cutlery, Mariott's file factory, the Eiver Don works, the Sheaf and Spring works, the Cyclops works, Park works, Regent works, Wilkinson's plate warehouses ; besides a great variety of foundries, warehouses, mills, and other works. There are also many mercantile houses, some of which confine their commercial operations to the home markets, while others export largely to the United States, Australia, the Cape of Good Hope, Brazil, South America, and the several continental cities, in most of which the manu- factures of Sheffield are to be found. The ordinary wages of the artisans in Sheffield are liberal, ranging from 1 to 2 a week, and in consequence their social condition is superior, most families living in separate tenements. In March, 1864, a catastrophe occurred by the bursting of the Bradfield dam, or embankment, which pent up the waters between the hills of Stan- nington and Loxley, about 6 miles N.W. of Sheffield, thus forming a reservoir, or rather artificial lake, lj mile in length, by a quarter of a mile broad, with a depth varying from 60 to 70 feet in its centre, and about 40 feet throughout. This mass of waters having thrown down the embankment, swept down the valley towards the lower part of Sheffield, carrying everything before it, mills, factories, trees, and entire streets of houses, and drowning between 200 and 300 people. The places which suffered most were Hillsborough, Malin-bridge, and along the Owlerton road. Although_a prosperous town, Sheffield does not present to the stranger an opulent appearance, from the absence of spacious squares and streets, most of the merchants and manufacturers having their private residences in the suburbs, which are extensive. The older part of the town is situated within the angle formed by the rivers Don and Sheaf, which are spanned by several bridges, and consists of numerous small streets, which, with the exception of one or two principal thoroughfares, are narrow and in- convenient. The houses are chiefly of brick. The streets are all well paved and lighted with gas. The public buildings are numerous ; the townhall, in Castle-street, was buUt in 1808, and enlarged in 1833, at the expense of the town trust ; the council hall, in Norfolk-street, where the corporation hold their meetings, is a modern structure ; the cutlers' hall, in Church-street, is a Gre- cian structure, with massive Corinthian columns, erected in 1833 for the accommodation, and at the expense, of the Cutlers' Company, originally established by Act of Parliament in 1624, and exercising the exclusive right of granting trade marks ; the county-court hall, in Bank-street, built in 1855 ; the corn exchange, erected in 1830 at the cost of the Duke of Norfolk; the new market hall, or Norfolk market, built on the site of the Tontine Inn, is a commodious pile of buildings in the Tuscan style, also erected by the Duke of Norfolk in 1851, at a cost of near 40,000. It is of brick, with stone basement, and measures 296 feet by 115, with a roof of iron and glass, and a fountain in the centre. The exchange and newsrooms occupy a building facing the old market. The facade consists of a centre and two receding wings ; the former with Doric pilasters and entablature proper. The lower part is occupied by the fish and fruit markets and the old-established wine- vaults of Young and Co., and the first floor by the ex- change and newsrooms, established in 1856. Over the market entrances are two niches with carved figures, of Mercury and Vulcan, the former typical of the Tele- graph Company's offices, which occupy the King-street end of the building, and the latter of the staple trade of Sheffield. The savings-bank in Norfolk-street is in the Italian style, erected in 1860 ; the Temperance Com- pany's Hall, in Townhead-street. The barracks, com- pleted in 1854, for cavalry and infantry, are in the Tudor style, and occupy a site of 25 acres, with en- trances from the Langsett and Peniston roads. The assay office, the vestry hall, built in 1857, and situated in the cemetery road, the music-hall, in Surrey-street, erected in 1823; the fire office in George-street, erected in 1810. There are besides the mechanics' institute, the Athenajum, in George-street, the law library, the Sheffield club, the inland revenue and tax office, the public baths in the Glossop-road,with two large swimming