Matildatory

The Building, The People, Past to Present

MATILDA is based in the Sydney Works, 111 Matilda St. The building has aquired an artistic leaning in it's old age and at present is the location of Adrenalin Studio's. Formerly the home of Yorkshire Artspace who now have the lovely Persistence Works gaff.

Sydney Works sits on a large site which was orginally the City Saw Mills, owned by Joseph Smith and Sons who were on the site from the 1850's to the 1970's. A set of four back to back buildings, around where Matilda is today, were home to a variety of businesses, including the coffin maker George Walch in 1865. Around this time James Deakin and Sons moved in, they were Silversmiths and metal workers. The Deakins would be the main tennants of Sidney Works (as it was then spelt) for the next 100 years.

Shopkeepers such as Charles Johnson, Catherine Ward, John Throp and William Bruton ran businesses on the site up to the turn of the century. They worked alongside a variety of metal trades workers including Rob, Ben and John Gorrill who made tools, saw blades and worked silver.

Around 1902 the back row of the present works was built. Deakins Silversmiths were now the sole occupants of the works and expanded the site again a few years later when the remainder of the present day building went up. In the late 1930's the cutlery making Needham Brothers moved in. Deakins Silversmiths became Sydney Silvermiths, and Sidney Works became Sydney Works.

In the 1960's more businesses moved in alongside Sydney Silversmiths as Sheffield's metal trades waned. Cutlery Manufacturers, a Spoon and Fork filer and a Scale Tong Cutter rubbed shoulders in the works. By the end of the 1970's automation and imports was drawing the much of the metal trades in Sheffield to a close but Sydney Works remains as a piece of Sheffield's history.