Edward Hobson (1799-1858) was the son of razor smith (and later farmer) Joseph Walshaw Hobson (d.1843, aged 80), of Stannington Wood.  By 1825, Edward was a razor manufacturer and hardware dealer at Snig Hill.  He once paid damages to Joseph Rodgers & Sons for imitating its name (Sheffield Independent, 13 December 1834).  In 1839, Hobson advertised his ‘wholesale cutlery warehouse’, where he ‘always has several hundred gross of pen, pocket and Wharncliffe knives in stock, with a large assortment of scissors, razors, table knives, saws, files, etc., suitable for the American or Country Trade, and to be sold cheap!!’  An advertisement in 1841 made the ‘warehouse’ seem less grand: it was on the ‘second floor, entrance in the passage’.  Nevertheless, Hobson had a London address in Fleet Lane and in 1841 was granted a Freedom of the City of London as a cutler.  He sold Bowies (Littman, 2008¹).  Edward’s sons, by his wife Hannah (d. 1856) – Henry and John Barber – became cutlery dealers. 

By the early 1850s, Edward was retired and living at Grove Cottage, Pye Bank.  His daughter, Caroline, had married W. S. Searls.  In December 1857, Edward re-married to Eliza Grocock, of Nottingham, who was fourteen years his junior.  They separated within months.  Afflicted by depression, Hobson cut his throat with a razor on 11 April 1858 (Sheffield Independent, 17 April 1858).  He was buried at Christ Church, Pitsmoor, leaving under £4,000.

^1. Littman, Donald [Greg Martin Auctions Catalogue], The Largest Knife Sale Ever Featuring the Estate of Donald Littman, Part I, 25 February 2008, in San Francisco (San Francisco, 2008)