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FASHIONING MOTHER-O-PEARL

MetadataFramesRelated records
Metadata

WORK ID: YFA 3373 (Master Record)

TitleYearDate
FASHIONING MOTHER-O-PEARL1937 1937-01-01
Details Original Format: 16mm
Colour: Black & White
Sound: Silent
Duration: 16 mins

Subject: FASHIONS
INDUSTRY



Summary
This is a promotional film for Gillott & Son (Pearl Works) Ltd, Sheffield.  It shows all the stages in the process of making goods out of mother of pearl; including cutlery handles, penknives, buttons, shoes buckles and jewellery.
Description
This is a promotional film for Gillott & Son (Pearl Works) Ltd, Sheffield.  It shows all the stages in the process of making goods out of mother of pearl; including cutlery handles, penknives, buttons, shoes buckles and jewellery. Title – Orford Films Present: Fashioning Mother-O-Pearl The film begins with a man picking up a mother-o-pearl shell from a pile. Intertitle – The Mother-O-Pearl shell, gleaming with iridescent hues; nature’s most beautiful gift The shiny inside of the shell...
This is a promotional film for Gillott & Son (Pearl Works) Ltd, Sheffield.  It shows all the stages in the process of making goods out of mother of pearl; including cutlery handles, penknives, buttons, shoes buckles and jewellery. Title – Orford Films Present: Fashioning Mother-O-Pearl The film begins with a man picking up a mother-o-pearl shell from a pile. Intertitle – The Mother-O-Pearl shell, gleaming with iridescent hues; nature’s most beautiful gift The shiny inside of the shell is held up for the camera. Intertitle – fished from sunlit seas they arrive in Sheffield mainly from Australia to be made into many useful and ornamental articles A workman opens up a wooden crate and reveals it is full of shells.  He places some of them into a smaller box to work on. Intertitle – the thick part provides handles for Sheffield’s finest cutlery. Men sit at workbenches cutting the shells. Intertitle – The handles are cut out by means of a high speed circular saw The cutting, and then the cut shell, is shown close up. Intertitle – The handle is now ground to shape on a carborundum stone A man shapes shells using two types of quickly spinning barrels, or wheels, covered in carborundum stone. Intertitle – cutting The handle is placed into a vice and is furthered worked upon using a small knife.  The finished handles are displayed. Intertitle – the handle is now bored to take the tang of the blade or fork. The handle is again placed into a vice and drilled with an electric drill until it is the correct size for the blade, or tang, to fit into it. Intertitle – various processes are now required to impart the lustrous polish to the handle. A workman polishes a handle on a fast spinning polishing machine, followed by a woman doing the finishing touches at another polishing machine.  The finished handle is held up for the camera. Intertitle – the handle is now fitted to the blade The end of the handle, where the blade is inserted, is refined using a metal tool rotated by hand using a bow and string.  It is then filed and tested for size. The blade is then inserted and held in place by glue taken from an old small pot.  A finished canteen of cutlery is shown in its display box.  Intertitle – the thinner parts of the shell are made principally into pocket knives scales, buttons and buckles A range of pocket knives are shown. Intertitle – the scales are cut out of the shell and ground to the right thickness ready for the cutler A woman pushes a shell though a small electric saw.  This shell is then ground, and the finished pocket knife is displayed. Intertitle – making buttons for all purposes A workman is pressing a shell against a grinding or cutting machine, which cuts out small circular pieces. Intertitle – after turning the buttons to the right thickness, they are drilled. Buttons are placed onto a drilling machine, one at a time.  A woman then places buttons onto another drilling machine. Intertitle – these buttons are being shaped to adorn British made shoes Women place buttons, one at a time, quickly onto a machine which shapes them. Intertitle – these girls inspect the buttons, after which they are polished in barrels along with other small articles A room full of women, working at workbenches, rapidly sort buttons into different sizes.  One of the women pours boiling water from a rotating barrel into a bucket in order to clean and polish the various small buttons.   Intertitle – shanking shoe buttons A woman works very quickly putting the shanks into the buttons, which are shown piled up. Intertitle – these buttons polished and dyed many beautiful shades to match dress or shoe are ready for carding and boxing The various types of buttons are displayed in their boxes.  They are then threaded onto cards. Intertitle – ready for delivery The buttons are packaged, ready to go. Intertitle – making buckles of all shapes and sizes. Women sit in rows, shaping buckles at rotating grindstones.  Various buckles are then displayed. Intertitle – artistic adornments for my lady A man sits at a workbench and puts beads onto necklaces with pliers.  A woman shows off some of the finished necklaces. Intertitle – the famous Norfolk knife, a masterpiece by Messrs’ Joseph Rodgers and Sons A penknife is displayed in close-up and has dozens of blades.  The fully open penknife is rotated to reveal all its blades and implements. Intertitle – beautiful table appointments made out of these wonderful shells Various tableware is on display.  Intertitle – Mother-O-Pearl beautiful and everlasting, nature’s most priceless gift.  Ask for goods of Sheffield manufacture. The End.
Context
This is one of two promotional films for Gillott & Son (Pearl Works) Ltd, Sheffield. The other, simply titled, Mother-O-Pearl, was made ten years later in 1947, and also shows the stages in the making of cutlery using Mother-O-Pearl. Not much is known of the makers of this film, Orford Films. The only film of theirs listed with the British Film Institute is Handing on our History, on the work of English Heritage, made in 1990.  There are several similar films to this one demonstrating the...
This is one of two promotional films for Gillott & Son (Pearl Works) Ltd, Sheffield. The other, simply titled, Mother-O-Pearl, was made ten years later in 1947, and also shows the stages in the making of cutlery using Mother-O-Pearl. Not much is known of the makers of this film, Orford Films. The only film of theirs listed with the British Film Institute is Handing on our History, on the work of English Heritage, made in 1990.  There are several similar films to this one demonstrating the process of making or manufacturing products - see for exampleWaddington's Piano Works, Scarborough (1930s).

W Gillott & Son was established in Sheffield in 1897. They moved to Eyre Lane, where the films were made, in 1923 from just a few streets away, and remained there until 1989. They are now located just six miles away in North East Derbyshire. The methods of working seen in the film seem quite old-fashioned even for those times, yet many of them still exist hardly changed to this day. Their website has photos which show many of these methods, with the same machinery, and these are worth checking out when viewing the film. They also still manufacture many of the same items, although they have branched out into other areas, like furniture and musical instruments. They remain a small business making hand-crafted goods, to order, in a traditional way. In this they resemble Thompson’s furniture makers in Kilburn, which can be seen making their products in Craftsman Of Kilburn (1948).

W Gillott & Son set out specialising in the cutting of Mother of Pearl shell and the supply of slabs to the cutlery trade. Over the years this developed into the supply of finished handles and spoons for the cutlery and flatware trade, and this is still one of their most important activities.

Mother of Pearl is the shell lining of many molluscs, such as Pearl oysters and abalone. The material, also called nacre, is an iridescent layer that takes on many colours.  W Gillott & Son provide this definition on their website: “Mother of Pearl, Latin name Pinctada Maxima, is a natural material produced on the inside of oyster shells. This natural process ensures that unlike a man-made material every piece of Mother of Pearl is unique in both colour and pattern.” Even after being bleached and dyed for decorative use the mother of pearl retains its shimmering quality. It is actually a composite material made up of inorganic plates of aragonite – a material which is secreted by the mollusc, containing calcium carbonate and conchiolin, a natural protein – and organic material similar to silk, secreted by the organism to layer between the plates. This latter makes the otherwise hard and brittle material both strong and flexible.

Apart from their own products, the film also showcases the spectacular Norfolk knife, made by Joseph Rodgers and Sons. These operated out of 6 (or 8) Norfolk Street, going back to 1787. One post on the Sheffield Forum notes that across from Pond St. bus station, looking towards Sheaf Street , on the side of the wall of the Rogers factory was, 'William Roger , the knife of kings and the king of knives'.  Like many smallish cutlery works they faded in the 1950s and 1960s: moving from Norfolk Street in about 1970, they  later merged with Wolstenholms, another Sheffield cutlery, becoming Rodgers and Wolstenholms and moving to Guernsey Road at Heeley.  Eventually they were bought up by the Egginton group in 1986, along with G Ibberson & Co – see Made in Sheffield (1954).

References

W Gillott And Son

What is Mother of pearl? Wisegeek

Joseph Rodgers and Sons on Sheffield Forum
Frames
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