This knife was probably used for cutting vines; and the cutler likely lived at Wadsley.  As a Sheffield directory explained in 1833, this was a village three miles north-west of Sheffield, which had ‘a considerable number of scattered dwellings, etc., occupied chiefly by cutlers employed in the manufacture of flatbacks, a heavy and coarse kind of pocket-knives’.   Flatbacks were usually single-bladed, in which the components were assembled in a rough state, and then ground flat in one operation.  This gave Wadsley a reputation for cheap (sometimes shoddy) cutlery.

Stephen Rose (1773-1851) was baptised at Ecclesfield, the son of John Rose – a cutler at Wadsley – and his wife, Hannah.  Stephen became a Freeman in 1802, after apprenticeship to his father.  By his wife, Hannah née Colley (c.1776-1833), Stephen had two sons: Stephen Jun. (1808-1884) and William (1818-1891).  In the Census (1841), Stephen Rose Sen., son William, and an apprentice were living and working at Far Lane, Wadsley; and Stephen Jun. and his wife, Ann, were in an adjacent dwelling.  In the following year, ‘Stephen Colley’ was briefly imprisoned in the debtor’s jail in Scotland Street, Sheffield (Sheffield Independent, 18 June 1842).  This name was an alias: it was actuallly Stephen Rose (probably Jun.) from Wadsley, who was described as pocket-knife blade forger.  In 1836, Stephen Rose Jun. had been hauled before the magistrates, after an accusation by another cutler, John Bateman, that he had tried to rob him on the highway.  The case was dismissed.

Stephen Sen. was enumerated in the Census in March 1851 as a 77-year-old ‘cutlery master’ in Wadsley, employing four men and a boy.  He was living with his son, William, and the latter’s wife, Julia née Loy (d.1881).  Stephen Jun. lived next door and was a pocket-blade forger.  Stephen Sen. died a few months later and was buried at St Mary’s churchyard, Ecclesfield.  Stephen and William continued to work as cutlers at Wadsley.  Stephen died on 19 September 1884, aged 75, and was buried at Wadsley churchyard.  William advertised vine pruning and pocket knives in the Commercial Directory of Sheffield (1859).  In 1861, he was a spring-knife cutler and publican at Wisewood Inn.  In 1862, he was fined for allowing drunkenness on the premises.  In the following year, William Rose was prosecuted for pocketing £88 of parish funds when he was a highways surveyor.  In court, he was said to be deeply in debt and rumoured to be about to sail for America.  Rose is not identified in press reports, though presumably it was William the cutler.  He was sent to jail for two months (Sheffield Independent, 9 May 1863).  He worked as a cutler, specialising in vine pruning knives, at Far Lane until his death on 30 June 1891, aged 73.