This unusual table knife features what looks like a mid-nineteenth century carbon steel blade.  However, the ferrule and handle give it a more modern look.  The stamp ‘PATENT TIMBRELL’ offers few clues.  An extensive trawl of contemporary printed sources has so far discovered only one possible lead.  The London Gazette, 22 November 1844, recorded the bankruptcy of Henry Timbrell, who had been a manager at Mitton Mills, a worsted manufacturer at Stairport, Worcestershire.  He had then traded briefly as Timbrell & Co, a Patent Table Knife Manufacturer, at New Bond Street, London; and also at Stangate in Lambeth, Surrey.  He was then ‘out of business’.  Another stint followed as a worsted and cotton manufacturer at various London addresses, until he was again ‘out of business and employ’.  Henry Timbrell, possibly the same individual, was enumerated in the Census (1851).  He and his wife, Mary, were staying with friends in London.  They had been born at Warwick; Henry was a ‘worsted manufacturer’.  No further details have been found.