Walter Robinson Swann (1900–1980): Surgical blade maker,craftsman and philanthropist

Introduction

Surgeons all over the world have long used Swann–Morton® surgical blades; indeed, over 95% of blades currently used in the National Health Service in the UK are made by them. However, it would seem likely that few of the users ever give a thought to the rather unusual company that makes them, or to its remarkable founder, Walter Swann, whose products have made such an important contribution to surgical practice.

From the middle of the 19th century, Sheffield, an industrial city in South Yorkshire, England, had established itself a world centre for the manufacture of high-quality steel, and especially of cutlery. ‘Made in Sheffield’ had become a byword for excellence, ¹ and even one of the local football teams, Sheffield United, has acquired the nickname ‘The Blades’.

The Sheffield steel industry has over recent decades shrunk to a fraction of its size in its heyday, yet Swann–Morton blades continue to be made there, and remain the blade of choice of surgeons, being currently exported for use in over a 100 countries worldwide.

Early life

Walter Morton Swann was born in Sheffield on 28 November 1900, the son of Walter Morton Swann, a mechanical engineer. However, after the early death of his father, he spent his childhood years living with his maternal grandmother in rural Cambridgeshire. He returned to Sheffield with a grammar school scholarship, and on leaving school at 16, began to learn about blade-making in one of the local steel companies. His initial mentor was a rather formidable lady, Miss Doris Fairweather (subsequently Mrs Thorpe, but apparently universally called Miss Fairweather), with whom he formed a lifelong professional relationship.

Working conditions in the Sheffield steel factories, as in much of heavy industry at that time, were very grim and dangerous; long hours and poor pay were the norm, but a youthful and idealistic Swann was inspired by stories of the 1917 Russian Revolution. In his leisure time, he went on long walks in the Derbyshire Peak District with his friend Alfred Morton, a metallurgist, with whom Swann discussed his ideas for bringing revolutionary socialism to the Sheffield steel industry.

The beginning of the company

Swann’s political views did not endear him to his employers, and he began to realize that the only way that he could ever bring them to fruition would be if he had his own factory. By 1932, he had scraped together a modest amount of capital, £150, to start his own business WR Swann and Co. Ltd, taking on Miss Fairweather (Figure 1), Alfred Morton ² and a number of the female machine operators from his previous employer. OPEN IN VIEWER

At the outset, Swann pinned a handwritten notice, still proudly displayed at the present head office, outlining the four principles on which the company was to be run:

Claims of individuals producing in an industry come first, before anything else, and must always remain first. They are the human beings on which everything is built.

Swann–Morton blades

At first, the company manufactured razor blades (Figure 2). Their early advertising posters specifically mentioned that the workers were on a 40-hour week (an entirely revolutionary idea in itself, at that time), but making razor blades was a very competitive, if not ‘cut-throat’, business. Fortunately, in 1935 they had a major stroke of fortune. OPEN IN VIEWER

The two-piece scalpel with disposable blade, with which we are now so familiar, had originally been patented by Morgan Parker in the US in 1915. He went into partnership with a medical instrument supplier Bard, and the Bard–Parker company was formed, and had a monopoly of supply of their scalpel-blade system. ³ However, in 1935 Bard and Parker fell out and the patent was not renewed. Swann seized the opportunity, and, believing that a double barrelled name would sound more impressive, launched his blades under the name Swann–Morton.

Swann–Morton scalpel blades, made with the finest Sheffield steel, soon developed a reputation for their quality and reliability, and the company rapidly grew, progressively expanding its premises and staff. Walter Swann, despite the profitability of the business, lived very modestly, in a small flat which he had built over one of the factory buildings. From the outset, he had always been a generous employer but in 1961 this took a slightly eccentric turn, when he bought a fruit farm in the Cambridgeshire of his youth, so that the staff could receive regular supplies of fresh fruit.

In 1964, there was a further important technical development, when, in conjunction with the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority, Swann–Morton became the first factory in the world to use sterilization of their products in the factory by gamma radiation. This is now a routine manufacturing technique.

Walter Swann’s legacy

Swann had never been interested in his own personal wealth, and, as the company grew, he became a generous benefactor to hospital charities in Sheffield and to the Royal College of Surgeons. However, he began to worry about what would happen when he and Miss Fairweather were no longer around. He decided to split the ownership of the company in equal shares between a charitable trust (The Swann–Morton Foundation) and a cooperative of the workforce (WRSwann and Co (trustees) Ltd); each year the charitable trust was to give away its share of the profits, and the workforce were to enjoy their share. ⁴

Walter Swann died in 1980 and Miss Fairweather in 1984, but the company continues to thrive; its production is still exclusively in Sheffield, and it remains, in an era of management consultants and corporate finance, run on Walter Swann’s founding principles. The senior management are recruited entirely from within the workforce, and no one has been made redundant since the 1940s. Walter Swann, from the outset, gave his workers, by the standards of their day, remarkable working conditions, and this principle continues to the present, workers getting 10 weeks holiday per year, a 35-hour working week and private health insurance. Clearly his founding principles have stood the test of time and have even brought comment in ‘The Economist’, not a magazine that would normal espouse revolutionary socialism! ⁵