George Whitaker (c.1817-1891) was a stag horn cutter and dealer.  By 1856, he was a partner in Whitaker & Beet (with William Beet) in Rockingham Street.  By 1860, they had parted and Whitaker continued alone.  In 1839, he had married Ann Dyson (d. 1880) from Birley Carr (see William Dyson).   They had a son, Charles Walter Whitaker (1840-1895).   In the 1860s, the business was restyled George Whitaker & Son, Rockingham Street.  In 1871, Charles Walter was farming 12 acres of land at Shotnell, but had returned to cutting stag horn in Rockingham Street a decade later.  George Whitaker died at Leavy Greave Road on 12 April 1891, leaving £215.   Charles Walter Whitaker, Sharrow Street, died on 5 March 1895, leaving £1,263.  The latter’s son, George Mann Whitaker (1865-1934), operated the business until the 1930s.  He lived at Brincliffe Crescent and died on 21 April 1934, leaving £23,000.   George Whitaker & Son continued to trade at Rockingham Street until the late 1950s.  Charles Walter Whitaker (1897-1969) – George Mann’s son – was the last owner of the business.

One of the workers at Whitaker’s was William Henry Scarlett (1909-1980).  Born in Hillsborough, Scarlett joined the firm when he left school at 14.  Scarlett left a vivid account of working life at the firm (Answer, 1980¹; Scarlett, 1986-87²).  When he started, he earned 10s [50p] for a six-day week, with the work conducted on three small floors.  Whitaker’s supplied all the big firms – Rodgers, Wostenholm, Needham, Veall & Tyzack – with buffalo horn and stag.  After 1945, the business dwindled, as the use of plastics eroded the horn trade.  Charles Whitaker had to lay off most of his workers.  Scarlett and a colleague, Bernard Whiting (1895-1990), were eventually the only workers remaining.  They took over what was left of the Rockingham Street business.  In 1977, when interviewed, Scarlett voiced the trade’s obituary: ‘It is hardly worth carrying on, there is no one to take it over.  Mr Whiting is 81 years old and I’m 67 years old, so we are now the last of the horn cutters; there is none left in Sheffield.  The ivory cutters have gone, the bone cutters have gone, so this is the finish of the Horn Trade in Sheffield.  This is March 31st, 1977, the last day of the horn trade’ (Answer, 1980¹).

^1. Answer, Valerie, Sheffield’s Traditional Craftsmen (Sheffield, 1980)

^2. Scarlett, W H, ‘The Last of the Sheffield Horn Cutters’, The Cutting Edge, No 3 (Winter, 1986-87)