Joseph Walter Green (1846-1917) was the son of John – a silversmith in Little Sheffield – and his wife, Eliza.   In the Census (1881), Joseph was living at Broom Close, Highfield, and working as a table knife hafter at Holly Street (employing one man and a boy).   In 1871, he had married Ann (Annie) née Bower.  They had three sons – Herbert, Joseph Walter (d.  1881), and George Arthur – and a daughter, Sarah Ann (b.  1887).   In 1885, when he was a table knife cutler, living in Heeley, Joseph warned the public that he was not responsible for his wife’s debts (Sheffield Independent, 13 June 1885).

Joseph was joined by his sons as table knife hafters.  Between 1905 and 1907, Joseph Green & Sons was listed briefly in printed sources at Sarah Street.   However, there is no evidence that Joseph’s sons were involved thereafter.  In the Census (1911), Joseph and his daughter were ‘workers’ living alone at Slinn Street: Joseph was a table knife hafter; Sarah Ann was in a cutlery warehouse.  Joseph’s wife, Ann, had died at Slinn Street in 1909, aged 58.  

In 1916, Joseph Green & Sons appeared again in directories as a cutlery manufacturer.  The address was 82 Backfields (a backstreet with tenement-style workshops, near the city centre).   In 1919, a Sheffield directory belatedly identified the owner as Joseph Walter Green, 36 Longfield Road, Crookes.   This was curious, as Joseph had died in January 1917, aged 70, at that address.  He had been buried at Crookes Cemetery in the same unconsecrated grave as his wife, Ann.   Interestingly, the street section of the 1919 directory listed the sole resident at 36 Longfield Road as Joseph’s daughter, Sarah Ann.  Presumably, she had inherited the Backfields’ business.  In 1939, when Joseph Green & Sons was listed for the last time, she was a laundry washer and still living at Longfield Road.  In that year, she married Arnold Young.  He died in 1960 and left her £380; but her subsequent life is untraced.