This scissors maker was probably the son John Greaves (a chandler).  Thomas was apprenticed to Thomas South, a scissorsmith, in 1760 and was granted his Freedom in 1782.  He went into partnership with William Jervis, but they ended this arrangement in 1785.  Two years later, Thomas Greaves was listed in the Sheffield directory as a fine scissors maker at Gibraltar, using the trade mark ‘ORB’.   A partnership with Joseph Law followed, but this was soon dissolved (Sheffield Public Advertiser, 1 January 1790).  In that year, Thomas Greaves was one of a group of scissors masters, who met at the Tontine Inn to ‘discuss the unlawful combination of the scissor grinders, formed for the purpose of advancing their wages’.  A further meeting was planned at Cutlers’ Hall to ‘check such dangerous Combinations’ (Sheffield Register, 20 August 1790).  Thomas Greaves only appeared once more in a Sheffield directory: that was in 1797, when he was based at the Wicker.  His son, also named Thomas, was a scissorsmith, who was buried at Attercliffe Chapel in 1793.   Thomas Greaves was buried at Attercliffe Cemetery on 3 May 1816, aged 68.