The city of Sheffield has long been synonymous with cutlery and steel, and most previous books have understandably concentrated on the momentous changes which industrialization wrought on the area over the last two hundred years. The figures are astonishing: as early as the seventeenth century three out of every five men in the town worked in one branch or another of the cutlery trades and, in all, Sheffield had a smithy to every 2.2 houses; a hundred years later there were as many as six watermills per mile on rivers such as the Don, Porter and Rivelin, driving a wide range of industrial machinery and processes; local innovations included Old Sheffield Plate, crucible steel and stainless steel; during the mid-nineteenth century 60 per cent of all British cutlers worked in the Sheffield area, and the region manufactured 90 per cent of British steel, and nearly half the entire European output; small, specialized workshops producing a wide range of goods such as edge-tools and cutlery existed side by side with enormous steel factories (it has been estimated that in 1871 Brown's and Cammell's alone exported to the United States about three times more than the whole American output). Yet, as David Hey shows, the city's history goes back way beyond this. Occupying a commanding position on Wincobank, high above the River Don, are the substantial remains of an Iron Age hillfort, built to defend the local population. Celts, Vikings and Anglo-Saxons came and left a legacy recalled in many local names. By the twelfth century William de Lovetot had built a castle at the confluence of the Don and the Sheaf, and it is likely that is was he who founded the town of Sheffield alongside his residence. A century later can be found the first reference to a Sheffield cutler, so industry in the area can be said to be at least 700 years old, and no doubt stretches back even further.

Sheffield's story is one of fierce independence and a revolutionary spirit, its industrial origins having their roots in the same forests as the legends of Robin Hood. From Huntsman's crucible steel in the eighteenth century, to Brearley's stainless steel in the twentieth, Sheffield forged the very fabric of the modern world. As the industrial age drew to a close the city's reputation for rebelliousness spawned its popular reputation as capital of the 'People's Republic of South Yorkshire'. Yet in the wake of the Miners' Strike and the Hillsborough Disaster, the early twenty-first century has seen Sheffield retain its unique character while reinventing itself as a centre of education, creativity and innovation.

A Social History of Sheffield Boxing combines urban ethnography and anthropology, sociological theory and place and life histories to explore the global phenomenon of boxing. Raising many issues pertinent to the social sciences, such as contestations around state regulation of violence, commerce and broadcasting, pedagogy and elite sport and how sport is delivered and narrated to the masses, the book studies the history of boxing in Sheffield and the sport’s impact on the cultural, political and economic development of the city since the 18th century. Interweaving urban anthropology with sports studies and historical research the text expertly examines a variety of published sources, ranging from academic papers to biographies and from newspaper reports to case studies and contemporary interviews. In Volume I, Bell and Armstrong construct a vivid history of boxing and probe its cultural acceptance in the late 1800s, examining how its rise was inextricably intertwined with the industrial and social development of Sheffield. Although Sheffield was not a national player in prize-fighting’s early days, throughout the mid-1800s, many parochial scores and wagers were settled by the use of fists. By the end of the century, boxing with gloves had become the norm, and Sheffield had a valid claim to be the chief provincial focus of this new passion—largely due to the exploits of George Corfield, Sheffield’s first boxer of national repute. Corfield’s deeds were later surpassed by three British champions: Gus Platts, Johnny Cuthbert and Henry Hall. Concluding with the dual themes of the decline of boxing in Sheffield and the city's changing social profile from the 1950s onwards, the volume ends with a meditation on the arrival of new migrants to the city and the processes that aided or frustrated their integration into UK life and sport.

For more than 250 years the name Sheffield was synonymous with the cutlery industry, although archaeological evidence shows that the industry goes back as far as the 12th century. With many of the buildings rapidly disappearing or being redeveloped, aside from those that have already been destroyed, this type of publication forms a vital record of an important part of industrial England. The contributors to this volume look at the development of the industry in the 18th century, the production of cutlery and flatware, forks and spoons, the organisation of the labour and working practices, and the geographical and structural development of workshops and other buildings associated with the industry.