Thread: Dunsford? Id help, please

Hi folks,

Picked up this razor. The only stamp is Dunsford on the tang, and is lightly etched on one side of the scales, as well, in a nice script. Googling Dunsford and razor turned up no results, and there's nothing in the database (that I saw, anyway) with this name. Does anyone have any insight into identification of this razor?

Thanks!

This might be a stretch, but I'll give this a shot. There was a Jabez Dunsford listed as a cutler in a few places I turned up, all in Tiverton, Devon:

https://books.google.com/books?id=Hg...nsford&f=false

https://books.google.com/books?id=4Q...=jabez&f=false

A Jabez Dunceford is listed on a school register as age 11 from 1791-93, which would peg him as about the right age to be a cutler for when that razor was produced (based on shape alone I would think it was +/- c. 1800):

https://books.google.com/books?id=QC...nsford&f=false

Here's a listing for a Thomas Dunsford, cutler, also in Tiverton:

https://books.google.com/books?id=6n...cutler&f=false

There's a mention of different Dunsford cutlers in here, but I think the date is too late (mid-late 1800s):

https://books.google.com/books?id=o6...cutler&f=false


So, given all that, I would take a guess that this razor may be c. 1800 from Devon (south-west England). Further, that tail shape is very unusual to razors from Sheffield. It is often seen on razors of London origin. It could very well be a completely different Dunsford from a different region, but these are just the hastily-assembled first possibilities I came across.

Hoo boy, this is a fun one. It's several cans of worms all rolled into one!

First of all, the Dunsford name, like Science Guy says, is from the South West of England. That's about the simplest part of the whole thing.

There seem to have been roughly a million of them, but the two most promising Dunsfords are both named Jabez.

The first Jabez Dunsford, cutler, had a big workshop in Exeter in the late 1700's. We know this because after he died in 1797, his sons (or nephews, or brothers) rented it out. William Dunsford was then making surgical instruments and was a cutler too, or so says the classified rental listing.

William's successor was R. Dunsford, doing pretty much the same thing (surgical instruments, trusses, etc).

But there was another Jabez in Exeter circa 1805 or so, and he moved to Plymouth, where he ran this ad:



(this ad is old enough that it's still using the archaic long-s, which happens to look almost exactly like a lower-case 'f'.)

That translates to:

CUTLERY MANUFACTORY, PLYMOTH.
J. DUNSFORD, cutler, surgeons' instrument and truss-maker, (late of Exeter,){meaning he just moved from there} respectfully begs leave to acquaint the nobility, gentry, his friends, and the public in general, that he is removed to his new shop, in the broad street, opposite How's-ian{???}, where he solicits their orders, and hopes, by punctuality, a strict attention to business, and by selling articles of the best workmanship, to merit that patronage with which he may be supported.

He manufactures table and desert knives and forks, with silver, pearl, ivory, and horn handles; sportsmen's pocket, and penknives; polished and studded scissars; warranted razors of superior temper; and a variety of other articles in the country line, too numerous for insertion.

(Let's leave off the potential readings of that last clause, yes?)

The key thing there is that it's an ad for a Dunsford selling razors specifically.

In my opinion, your razor was most likely made by the OTHER Jabez Dunsford, since the later one seems to have not had the greatest luck in the world -- he had multiple bankruptcies, lost a wife and seems to have died destitute.

But just because that's not really complicated enough, there was another, later Dunsford making surgical instruments and trusses who specifically advertised that he was in no way related to ALL THOSE OTHER Dunsfords, including the Dunsford who invented the Dunsford Truss, which was apparently A Thing.

Wow! Thanks, ScienceGuy and Voidmonster for sharing your great ability to dig up this history! Most interesting!

You guys are simply amazing! Thank you for the detail. I'm curious, though...what do you do to conduct these searches? I suspect using cutler rather than "straight razor" with the name will yield more hits. I suppose I was hoping someone would have written more recently about razors like this. Seems like I have something fairly uncommon, with tortoise shell scales to boot.

Originally Posted by Moonshae

You guys are simply amazing! Thank you for the detail. I'm curious, though...what do you do to conduct these searches? I suspect using cutler rather than "straight razor" with the name will yield more hits.

Often you can pull a surprising amount of information from google books. In the forms that these are listed, it is often in directories of tradesmen. So often you can get a lot of information by searching for a name and 'cutler' or 'razor' (often they are listed as a cutler and not specifically as a razor maker. Sometimes they sold goods but didn't make razors themselves). The problem with English names is that many are common and repeated; for this you just need to pull a lot of references and cross-reference to make sure the names as the right ones; sometimes it's a dead end with some names you just can't separate/ identify with certainty.

Originally Posted by Moonshae

You guys are simply amazing! Thank you for the detail. I'm curious, though...what do you do to conduct these searches? I suspect using cutler rather than "straight razor" with the name will yield more hits. I suppose I was hoping someone would have written more recently about razors like this. Seems like I have something fairly uncommon, with tortoise shell scales to boot.

I use a lot of different sources: easiest are

The Sheffield Indexers

Sheffield Records Online requires that you complete a signup form and wait to be validated by the site administrator, but it's well worth doing.

While both those sites offer search facilities on the apprentice records, I prefer to use the source they pull their data from, specifically the second volume of Robert Eadon Leader's 'History of the Cutler's Company of Hallamshire'. From Google you can download that book as a PDF file, and if you've got the tools, you can convert it to a searchable document. This is useful because there are typos and oddities in the records and it's often best to be able to see surrounding context, where the online searches aren't as easy to see where you're at. Also, Sheffield Indexers links to a different, inferior scanned copy of the same book. Volume 1 isn't available on Google Books, but I have a physical copy. However, it's mostly a narrative of the long and sometimes tedious history of the guild.

Another useful book is Gales & Martin's 1787 Directory of Sheffield. Again, while most or all of the information is technically available through the searches on Sheffield Indexers or Sheffield Records Online, the actual book can sometimes answer questions that a simple text search cannot (especially when it comes to fancy trademarks). I also have a physical copy of the 1887 reprint edition, which is very nice to have. Interestingly, there are some small differences between the 1887 facsimile edition and the original 1787 edition -- unfortunately, the original edition is only rarely available and does not appear to exist in scanned form.

All that said, those are the useful, free resources... But all the information I provided above came from The British Newspaper Archive. It's not hugely cheap, but I've come to rely on it when other sources fail me. Also useful is the international subscription for Ancestry.com, but that's pricey enough I've currently let my subscription lapse.

Originally Posted by Voidmonster

unfortunately, the original edition is only rarely available and does not appear to exist in scanned form.

Let me know anytime you need a hookup here... I have a first edition

Thanks for the links, Zak. We also let the Ancestry lapse. As you research your family it gets expensive for the occasional foray.
Esp as you know not how to navigate!
You and several others here can obviously put things together in an efficient manner. Pretty cool! : Good to see you both collaborating on history.
I have recorded them and will be looking at them.
Again, Thanks!

Thanks for the links Zak! Your help is also greatly appreciated ScienceGuy. I need more references. I love doing research!

I actually have the Sheffield Indexers I found one day but it is buried in my bookmarks somewhere. This time I'll email it to myself & put it in a folder.