Robert Barnard (1762-1830) was baptised a Quaker at Upperthorpe in Sheffield.  He was the son of John Barnard (a tanner) and his wife, Hannah née Wilson.  Robert was apprenticed as a cutler in 1776 to Robert Tricket at Hill Foot.  The apprenticeship was notable, because his father underwrote it with a 20 shillings  (£1) premium.  After seven years learning the trade, Robert became a Freeman in 1783.   He then trained his brothers, John and Daniel.

In the late 1780s, Robert Barnard joined other Freemen, such as John Jervis, in challenging the authority of the Company of Cutlers to control the trade (Macdonald, 2005¹).   In 1788, Robert Barnard registered a silver mark at Furnace Hill.  In 1792, another silver mark was registered by Robert Barnard and William Hadfield (possibly William Hatfield) at Grindlegate (an alley off Scotland Street).   His name did not appear in the Sheffield directory, possibly because he had left town.  In 1796 at Liverpool, he married Hannah, the daughter of Andrew Gayland (late of Bristol) and Susannah.  In the Quaker record of the marriage, Robert was described as a Manchester merchant. 

He also had literary leanings.  In 1792, he had been elected president of Sheffield Library.   He wrote poetry and called himself the ‘Sheffield Poet-Laureate’.   He sent occasional pieces to the local press and later penned A Wreath from the Wilderness (1816), which included a selection of his earlier pieces.  The book was published at Ironbridge, where he had apparently moved to join other members of the Barnard family.  Robert Barnard, ‘gentleman’, died on 21 March 1830, aged 68, at Coalbrookdale,‘after a long and painful illness’ (Sheffield Independent, 10 April 1830).  He received a Quaker burial at Coalbrookdale.  Hannah had predeceased him in 1825.

^1. Macdonald, Julie, ‘The Freedom of Election: The Company of Cutlers in Hallamshire and the Growth of Radicalism in Sheffield, 1784-1792’ (Sheffield University PhD, 2 vols, 2005)