This ‘Firth Stainless’ table knife was made in Sheffield for Jonathan Hodgson Marlow (1868-1935).  He had been born at Frizinghall, near Bradford, the son of James (a gardener), and his wife, Sarah.  Jonathan initially worked in Bradford as a surgical instrument maker (according to the Census in 1891).   However, during the 1890s he moved to Harrogate and was trading as an ‘optician and cutler’ in a small shop on the corner of Market Place and Cambridge Street.  In 1894 at Bradford, he married Nanny Firth (1868-1933), daughter of a soda water manufacturer,.  At about that time, he occupied a ‘Works’ at Market Square and also acquired the business of B. Miller.  The latter had been a long-established grinder, working cutler, and umbrella repairer at Market Place.

In 1910, Marlow advertised as ‘The Practical Optician, Cutler, Truss Maker, and Surgical Mechanician’, with a showroom at James Street, Harrogate.  Marlow and his family lived at Holly House, Dragon View, Harrogate.  During the First World War, he advertised regularly in the local press, when he began selling Gillette safety razors (Harrogate Herald, 6 January 1915).  Marlow was a member of Harrogate Town Council, a freemason, and a Freeman of the City of London, yet he died in relative obscurity in 1935 after filing for insolvency four years earlier (Yorkshire Post & Leeds Intelligencer, 20 May 1935).  His wife, Nanny, had predeceased him.