We recently hosted award winning portrait photographer, Tom Barnes. Tom has a passion for visiting craft workshops and capturing the wonderful craftsmen and women behind the products.

Tom captured our team beautifully and we wanted to share his images and introduce you to some of the talented people who make the products at home.

Andrew is our longest serving senior craftsman having worked with us for almost 50 years. There’s very little that Andrew can’t make or do. Andrew is the last known hand-grinder in the world.

Watch his video here.

Steve is our production supervisor and the right-hand-man of our Production Manager. Aside from his duties overseeing much of our factory, Steve can typically be found using his vast experience of assembling scissors at his (often messy!) work bench,

Pete is in charge of our hardening shop, ensuring all our scissors are hard enough to hold a cutting edge. Pete is also a talented assembler and Andrew’s protégé, helping us keep the art of scissor making alive for future generations.

Ian is one of our machine grinders. He operates our 70 year old grinding machines and gives the scissors an edge to cut. Ian ensures the grinding machines are maintained correctly to ensure maximum sharpness of our scissors and the longevity of our fabulous grinding machines.

Wes works alongside Ian as another of our machine grinders. As a trained CNC-machinist, Wes has brought his extensive engineering expertise and knowledge to our factory.

Michael can often be found by the drilling machines. He gives every forging a screw hole so they can be ‘tapped’ and eventually screwed together. Without him, we would literally fall apart!

Due to demand, our production team has never been bigger and we’ve recently welcomed some new additions to the William Whiteley family: Sue, Rob, Jake, Jamie and Gary, who will soon become familiar faces.