Last Little Mester of Sheffield

Sometime in the early 1990s, a journalist—to the chagrin of the handful of other knifemakers also still working in Sheffeld, England—described Stan Shaw as “The Last Little Mester,” and the title stuck until Stan’s passing in February. Stan made many fancy pocketknives but “Little Mester” was never simply a title that denoted mastership of a craft skill.

“STAN WAS NOT A ‘LITTLE MESTER.’ HE WAS A MASTER.”
—THE AUTHOR

Historically, workers in the Sheffeld cutlery industry were notoriously independent. As the industry moved from craft-based to industrialization, nearly all cutlers were on piece-work and would rent