Stan Shaw is an exceptional Sheffield cutler, and I use that word quite deliberately. I don't think there is anyone else working in the town who can hold a candle to him. He was clearly trained well, and has a life-long interest and fascination with pocket knives, and how they are made. He has also known, for the past couple of decades at least, that he can get a decent price for his work, and make the patterns he chooses to make, working at his own pace, without some gaffer at his elbow hurrying him along, or telling him to cut corners.
Cutlers being badly paid is nothing new, nor are filthy working conditions. These were certainly much worse in the distant past, as even the most cursory exploration of cutlery history will show. Sheffield once had thousands of cutlers, with nearly every person in the town involved in the cutlery trades, and they had a direct heritage going back hundreds of years. Work conditions may have been bad, but so were living conditions in general, that was the 'lot' of working people, and they expected nothing more (many jobs were even worse paid). Cutlers served apprenticeships of up to 10 years, sometimes even more, and even before they officially commenced their apprenticeships (at 14), they would probably have been helping their fathers at the hearth for years. Cutlery was everything in Sheffield, and a good craftsman won respect, he also had plenty of work. A bad worker would not only have had little respect, he would have been beaten throughout his apprenticeship, and starved. Certainly, not all cutlers were great cutlers, but considering the wages they earned, standards were remarkably high.
The cutlers who are alive today grew up in entirely different times, where if a young man wanted to earn a good living, he did ANYTHING else, even bin-men (refuse collectors) were better paid. It was a time when people aspired to better things, when they didn't want to spend their days bent over a wheel in a dirty, damp cutlery works, which had probably changed little since the 19th, or even 18th century. If he was a bright, intelligent lad, with good exam results, he would have almost certainly chosen another career. If he served an apprenticeship at all, it would have been for a shorter period, and changes in working practices meant he might spend his first year or two sweeping up, and only ever learn certain aspects of the trade. Instead of trying to compete on QUALITY, almost all the Sheffield manufacturers chose to compete with their foreign rivals in terms of PRICE (and the buying public, largely, valued cheapness above quality). They was a drive to cut corners, to buy cheaper steel, to use cheaper materials, shell-handles replaced horn or bone. Cutlers and cutlery firms constantly undercut each other, and cutlers were paid less and less for their work, which was in less and less demand.
Bearing these factors in mind, it is hardly surprising that quality suffered. Most Sheffield cutlers of the later twentieth century probably never produced a great knife, just thousands of cheap, working knives. Things like 'square and clean' joints, which Sheffield cutlers had once prided themselves on, went out of the window decades ago.
Recently, one of the few existing cutlery firms (and they are not an old one), Arthur Wright & Sons, have taken on a couple of apprentices. If the employment situation here were better, I doubt they'd be able to find any, and their lowly wages will be subsidised or paid in full by the government, who are trying to encourage apprenticeships (or at least to reduce the unemployment figures). I have had a few decent knives from Arthur Wright, but I've also seen a lot of knives with gaps and numerous other flaws (I've also seen a good few GEC knives like that too). Let's put things into context though, the largest part of their customer base is not knife collectors, but ordinary blokes, gardeners and farmers, who just want a cheap knife they can keep sharp. You can buy an Arthur Wright Lambsfoot from as little as £13 - under $19 - here, about 10% of what a GEC knife sells for in the UK. That's RETAIL. So what did the cutlery firm get paid for that, and how much did the cutlery worker earn, no wonder fit and finish aren't what they could be? I'd be very happy if firms like Arthur Wright put their prices up, and increased the quality of their knives, and their quality control, but if they listened to that advice, they may well go out of business.
The 'that'll do' mentality, which isn't confined to the cutlery trades (and is shared by consumers as well as producers), has always appalled me. But I think that's how workers have been trained here (and elsewhere) for decades. Certainly for a working cutler, excellence rarely pays, it just leads to poverty and/or the sack (unemployment). And when those same workers get offered a better price for their labours, they might not even have the skills to turn out a better product, they might not even know what a better product looks like. I once told a couple of Sheffield cutlers that I would treble their usual rates if they would make knives to my standard, and the first thing they did was machine-ground the points of the 'handmade' knives, completely ruining them in the process.
Just as the cutlers of old were a product of their times, and of a harsh and cruel system, which killed them early, but which gave us some beautiful Mother-of Pearl fruit knives for example, so the Sheffield cutlers working today are a product of their times also, times where only a few respect and will pay for real quality, and where the majority just want something cheap and serviceable.
This puts an understandable perspective on the Sheffield cutlers.