An advertisement traced the Saynor business to 1738.   Apparently, Samuel and John Saynor were the sons of Joseph (a husbandman) and apprenticed as cutlers.  John was granted his Freedom in 1782 (trade mark, ‘RAINBOW’); Samuel in 1783 (trade mark,‘OBTAIN’).  In 1785, John registered a silver mark from Pea Croft.  Beet & Senyers [sic], pen and pocket knife makers, was listed at Pea Croft in 1787, with an additional mark, ‘BRET’.   That unusual mark may have been coined to avoid clashing with another Sheffield cutlery mark ‘BEET’.  It is interesting to note the baptism of Ann Beet Saynor, the daughter of Samuel Saynor (cutler) and his wife, Elizabeth, on 20 April 1778.

By 1790, S. & J. Saynor operated at Bank Street (registering a silver mark in 1792).  Reputedly, they had more hands than any other firm: ‘They were factors and manufacturers, their chief business being done in London in all kinds of knives, swords, shoe buckles, skates, scissors, and razors’ (Leader, 1876).   Samuel died in 1805:

His death was awfully sudden; on coming into his house from his workshop, where he had been engaged most of the forenoon, he complained of being poorly, and requested that he might have a basin of broth, which, when his wife returned to present him with, she found him sitting dead in his chair (Chester Chronicle, 19 April 1805).  

The enterprise continued at Bank Street under John Saynor and Samuel’s widow, Elizabeth.   On 16 October 1810, the partnership was formally dissolved by John Saynor and Elizabeth Saynor (the latter signing with a mark).  Coincidentally, John Saynor, ‘cutler’, had been buried at the parish churchyard on 16 August 1810.  Was this the ‘John’.  Possibly, though it appears he had signed the dissolution documents and so it may have been his son who had died.  John Saynor continued to be listed at Bank Street until 1817.  The Bank Street workshops were later dismantled and the shop fitting and building materials sold (Sheffield Independent, 8 July 1820).  The burial at the parish church of John Saynor, ‘cutler’, on 5 February 1821 may be significant.  He was aged 65, but it is unknown if he was co-founder of the firm.

The Bank Street John Saynor should not be confused with another John Saynor, who in the early 1820s was landlord at the Barrack Tavern, Bowling Green (a favoured haunt for the Forfeit Feast of the Company of Cutlers).  This was probably John’s victualler nephew – also named John (the son of Samuel) – who became insolvent in 1829 and died at Pea Croft, ‘after a long and severe affliction’, on 6 July 1835, aged 61 (Sheffield Independent, 11 July 1835).  He was buried at St James’ churchyard.  

The Saynor cutlery presence in Bank Street/Scargill Croft was maintained by one of John’s sons, Thomas (1788-1856), who specialised in pen-machines.   He had been apprenticed to his father in 1803 and became Freeman in 1812.  Thomas Saynor’s cutlery and pen-machine business was listed until about 1840, but after ‘the steel pen came into use, trade began to be bad.  In sailing from London to Hull, a drunken sailor fell out of his hammock on to Mr [Thomas] Saynor, and injured him for life.  He lay for a long time in Hull, and after he came home he was unable to attend to his business’ (Leader, 1876).   During the 1840s, Thomas was listed as a spring knife cutler and later an old clothes dealer in Grindlegate.  He died from chronic bronchitis on 8 April 1856, aged 68, and was buried in the General Cemetery.  The ‘RAINBOW’ mark passed to Saynor, Cooke & Ridal.