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.

Photograph of Jack Carl, grinder, at J. Elliot & Sons cutlers, on wet stone, 21 August 1981, courtesy of Sheffield Libraries.