Groves and Sons LONDON

Hey Ray et all
A few weeks ago Mark showed us that early Kenyon saw and it was later I realized that I had a saw in my collection with a similar style handle. Kenyon of coarse were early Sheffield makers and yet they produced what we have would call \"London Pattern Handles\" with the London flat bottom.
This saw is marked Groves and Sons London and has been well known as part of Richard Groves\'s of Sheffield who produced saws from around 1811-1900s in a few different locations. Was this a marketing ploy for some of these firms to produce saws in Sheffield and mark them London because it was considered more upscale? Was there an Groves and Sons distributor in London where you could buy these saws. The Sheffield saws are well known for their distinctive stamps and 1770 medallion and marking something London would offer a change. This saw isn\'t the only example I have seen marked with the \"London\" stamp so there must have been many produced.
The 18\" steel backed blade is 4 1/2\"deep. The beech handle is held on to the blade with three early small brass screws (unfortunately one screw is missing) and has that very distinctive shape similar to Marks early Kenyon saw. The long chamfer is preceded by an even longer beak or hook that gives it that distinctive shape. It really helps in balance. Let me know if there are answers or ideas to the differences between the London saws and the Sheffield saws.
Joe

 

Thanks Ray
This is what I suspected. A \"London\" mark was made as a quality indicator as opposed to a manufacture locale. The saw may have been imported to a burgeoning country like Canada in the early half of the 19th century as a high degree, quality name prior to the forthcoming influence of the American saw manufactures who were just beginning to make inroads into development of quality steel. The Dominion was forever influenced by British trade domination and it took some time before very good American quality steel made it across the borders or even Quality Canadian saw manufacturers began producing in the 1860s. The \"London\" name had a panache.
Would the unusual stylized \"&\" be an indication of a time period because it really isn\'t that common either?
Again Ray ,thanks for the info and comments
Joe

 

I have many R.Groves & Sons back saws, unfortunately not as early as yours, but have wondered what the \'USE\' stands for?
I could only think maybe \'United States Export\', but I find most of the saws in the UK!!?
What a wonderful site to connect to! Roger

 

Hey Roger. Welcome.
The advertisements for Richard Groves and Sons show the \"USE\" as their corporate mark. The corporate mark was \"granted by the Cutlers\' Company and Registered In England and Germany\". I\'m not sure if it was designated as a standard of excellence but I\'m pretty sure it wasn\'t signifying any particular reference to US export.
regards
Joe

 

Hi Guys, sorry it took me so long to post again!.
2 things to add:

a) At a recent Tool Show up here in Toronto I did some diving under a pile of junk and for $10 [/b]came up with an interesting saw. It is clearly marked on the steel back (flat top with 1/8\" bevelled sides)... vertically a Crown and underneath W.R.G. Then W.R.GROVES & SON SHEFFIELD . Then CAST STEEL, Elastic Spring Temper , Warranted Good (never saw that warranty before!) The beautiful brass medallion reads W.Richard Groves & Son. Crown emblem, W.R.G.& S,
Sheffield. 3 small split nuts. Unfortunately missed all of the top horn. Aged coloured beech handle. \'Hand Saw makers of Britain\' indicates \"& SON\" as 1817-1821 and \"& SONS\" as 1822-1911.
Interestingly my saw is the first reference I have seen that the father\'s name was W. Richard....William maybe? Don\'t think that the straight blade has been sharpened much ( in 200 years!). Toe depth 70mm, Heel depth 80mm

b) With ref. to this posting on R.Groves LONDON saw. The \"& Sons\" tells us after 1822, but since my saw has a medallion this one should too. I surmise that the saw in question may have an owner made handle which would explain the missing medallion and only 2 original fixing screws. Could this saw be between my \"& SON\" and the use of the \"USE\" mark?

Sorry , I have been trying for an hour to resize/crop by pixels and KB and I cannot get my photos to conform to the site parameters. I will keep trying, but do not know if I will be \'cut-off\', so will post now what I have typed.

Rog

 

OK here goes with an attempt at photos as described above!!

 

OK, well that did not work very well, the picture is vertically elongated and not like my original. Posting pictures here is just too difficult. I\'ll try again!








It may work, if not, I give up after 2 hours.
Rog

 

. I have been trying for the last hour to upload photos to this site and have failed miserably. It is just too complicated! I can search and find the file in the box below, but what do I do then? Push the little box next to it? Push the IMG button above here?
I just do not know how I even got the one distorted image to load!
Please help an old guy.
Rog

 

Since Richard Groves changed to & Son in 1817 and & Sons in 1822 we can assume that the sons (Thomas & William) were separated by 5 years. Can we assume that the firstborn might be given a second name as of his father, i.e William was born first? In the early 1800\'s ( according to Rabone history by \'Hallam\') an \'& Son\' could be used when the son was as young as 13 yrs old.
So William Richard Groves could have been born around 1804. So he could have been the William Groves listed in Whites in 1833 sawmaker. We could go on, it is mind-boggling to track a family history when succeeding generations always seemed to use the same name!
I agree with you that the \'wordier\' the back the later the saw, so you could be right about later than 1850 ( Damn it!)
And now for some pictures ( maybe)

 

That photo is totally distorted and looks nothing like the photo that I have on my computer.
I have to give up.
Rog

 

I managed to upload good photos to my gallery under the file \'W.Richard Groves & Son\'
But it would be easier to read if the photos could easily be uploaded to the text in the forum.
Can anybody help me here as to which buttons to push to get the pictures there!?

Rog

 

Hi,
This is one for the record. For those of you who have experience of me trying to upload photos to the site, then you will know that this is the blind leading the partially sighted, and please have a good giggle now. What are the odds that I get it wrong? NB. This will not get the photo in the text but the URL to go to it easily, which is the next best thing.

If you go to the C Garlick and Sons topic, (about 12 items previously) you will see a contribution by Peddar (I probably have the spelling wrong again) which explains how to do it. What is below fleshes this out (I hope).

I use Firefox, but I suspect that if you use Internet Explorer or anything else then it will be the same.

1 Open two windows. (In my case Firefoxes). You have to open two because if you leave this part of this site for any reason then you loose your text and have to start again, as I have found out - the hard way.

2 Use one of the windows to write the text of the Topic.
When you want to insert the URL of a picture into the text, go to the second window.

3 Go to the picture in your gallery and open the one that you want. At the bottom of the picture is a load of blurb. Go to the URL.

4 Right click on the \"http-------\"

5 Left click on \"Copy link location\".

6 Go back to your first text window. Decide where you want the link to appear. Right click and then left click on \"Paste\"

The URL should appear in black in the draft and blue in the preview. If it does not appear in blue in the preview then something is wrong and I haven\'t the faintest idea what to do apart from deleting the URL and trying again.

Hope it works. If it doesn\'t, Ray please delete this.

Fred.

One thing that I have found when putting photos on the site, rather than messing round trying to reduce too big an image on the computer (I wouldn\'t know how to in any case), I set my camera to 640x480 pixels. This works perfectly well.

 

Just a test run on the new software

 

New software

Just testing out the new software and learning it at the same time
Rog

 

New software

This is under 'Go Advanced'
I will try to load up a photo ( if they are not too big)