William Hollin was listed in a Sheffield directory in 1821 as a maker of table-knife blades at Crook Croft. He was subsequently at Hospital Walk (1822), Broad Street Park (1825), and South Street, Park (1833).  He alternated knife making with brewing and in 1828 was listed at Park Brewery, Park Gate. In that year, Hollin, a brewer of 'intermediate' beer, was fined £28 for a selling ale on his premises ‘contrary to the term of the Act of Parliament’ (Sheffield Independent, 2 August 1828). In 1833, he was in court at Wakefield as a bankrupt, when he was described as a table knife cutler and retailer of beer.  In that year, he was also fined £1 plus costs for having his beer house open during the hours of divine service (Sheffield Independent, 17 August 1833).

In 1835, more serious charges were levelled against Hollin. Samuel Frost – a manufacturer of table knives at Broad Lane Works – charged George Rodgers, a blade striker, with thieving steel from his warehouse.  Hollin, who worked across the courtyard from Rodgers, was charged with receiving the stolen steel. Rodgers and Hollin were also accused of stealing cheese from a cheese factor at Hope, Derbyshire.  The latter charge was dismissed: but the two men were each sentenced to six months’ hard labour for the theft of the steel (Sheffield Independent, 19 December 1835; 16, 23 January 1836). After sentencing, Rodgers applied to the court to know if their wives would be allowed to take the cheeses home with them.

William Hollin was listed in directories in the 1840s as a table or palette knife manufacturer at South Street, Park. According to an advertisement for a property sale in South Street, Hollin occupied a cutler’s workshop in a typical cluster of dwellings, which included a beer house, known as Shrewsbury Tavern (Sheffield Independent, 13 June 1840). He was enumerated in the Census (1841) as a blade maker at that location, with no family, but with George Rodgers next door running the beer house.  

In the directory (1856), Hollin was listed as a palette knife maker at South Street, Park.  William Hollin, of South Street, was buried at St John's churchyard, Park, on 5 July 1857 (aged 69). No obituary notice has been found in the press. The Sheffield Independent, 1 June 1872, carried a notice by the trustees of William Hollin, deceased, which offered for sale five messuages or dwelling houses in South Street.