John Burgin (c.1789-1856) was a spring knife manufacturer, based in Walkley (where he was listed in a directory in 1825).  In 1852, he was listed as John Hallam Burgin.  The Census enumerated him in the previous year in Low Walkley, where he lived with his wife, Amelia, and teenage son, Charles Burgin (Charles Burgon).  John Burgin employed nine men and a boy.   In a discussion about ‘flatback knives’ in The Sheffield Independent, 16 May 1874, it was stated that originally these had been put together with blade and backspring unground.  But Burgin ‘made a flatback knife of the better class in which the spring was very finely glazed.  For years he had the trade to himself, but the late Mr Copley also of Walkley, became a very successful competitor.  Now knives are to be seen made in this way in nearly every pocket-knife cutlers’ shop in the town, and somehow the cutlers manage to burnish the spring backs’.   John and Amelia Burgin were buried in Bradfield cemetery: John on 19 October 1856, aged 69; and Amelia on 12 January 1864, aged 74.