This company was apparently started in the mid-1860s.  The original partnership involved John Gillott, Joel Lister, and John Knowles.  Joel Lister (1840-1904) was the son of Edward Lister, a silver plater, and his wife, Ann. John Knowles (c.1820-1904) was born in Dore and was a razor smith, before becoming a cutlery manufacturer.  The firm was a razor and table knife manufacturer at Progress Works in Duke Street, Moor.  In 1866, Gillott withdrew.  Lister in Duke Street and Knowles in Nether Edge were listed as the partners in the directory (1868), which contained an advertisement for the firm.  The products were razors, table knives, spear, butchers’, cooks’, palette, dagger, and Bowie knives.  The trade mark was the word ‘EQUAL’ and a rider on a horse.

In September 1867, a fire was reported to have swept through Lister & Knowles’s cutlery manufactory in Eyre Lane, causing up to £800 damage.  In the 1870s, Lister & Knowles continued to operate from Duke Street (registering a knife patent in 1870).  However, by the end of the decade Joel Lister seems to have been trading alone from Progress Works, Suffolk Street.  His business was liquidated in 1881, when he had liabilities of £1,838 against £160 in assets.  Lister reappeared in 1883 as a table-knife manufacturer in Egerton Street, but like Knowles he seems to have eventually found employment as a manager.  In 1901, Lister was a rent collector; Knowles’s last job was as a cashier and bookkeeper.  John Knowles and his wife, Ann, were buried in Ecclesall.