Joseph Holmes (c.1783-1855) was born at Bakewell, Derbyshire.  He may have been the son of John and Ann Homes and baptised on 16 March 1783 at St Oswald’s, Ashbourne.  One cutler in the apprenticeship listings seems a match: Joseph Holmes, the son of John, a labourer, from Rowland (a village near Bakewell), who in 1798 was apprenticed to James Colley, a scissor maker.   Joseph Holmes was listed in 1818 as a scissors manufacturer at Broad Lane.  Between 1821 and 1828 (according to directories) Joseph was based at Peacroft.  He was variously described as a scissors manufacturer, general cutlery dealer, and manufacturer of tailors’ shears and knives.   Holmes styled himself as a merchant as Joseph Holmes & Co.  

In the 1820s, he partnered two Birmingham hardware agents – Robson Bielby (c.1771-1841) and his son Thomas Nelson Bielby (1805-1875) – but this was dissolved in 1829.  In the directory (1833), Joseph Holmes (presumably this individual) was listed as a wire and hardware dealer at Carver Street; and also scissors manufacturer at Radford Place.   A cutler of that name was bankrupt in 1842, though the identification is not quite certain (as other cutlers had the same name).  In the Census (1841), Joseph was enumerated as merchant, living with his wife, Elizabeth, and daughter, Mary.  A decade later, Joseph and Elizabeth were at Suffolk Road, where Joseph stated his occupation as collector to a funeral society.  Joseph died at Suffolk Road on 30 December 1855, aged 72, and was buried at St Mary’s churchyard, Bramall Lane.