Wallis Markham was born in Sheffield in 1838.  He was the son of Wallis Markham (sometimes spelled ‘Wallace’), who was a butcher in Westbar, and his wife Eliza.  Wallis Markham Sen. was bankrupt in 1842.  He found a job as a watchman, but on Saturday evening on 10 October 1846 he was found dead in the back of the Bay Horse public house in Westbar Green.  He was aged 44.  An inquest concluded that he had swallowed poison, due to a ‘temporary fit of insanity’ (Sheffield Independent, 17 October 1846).  He was buried in Portobello churchyard.  By the early 1860s, his son had established himself as a manufacturer of silver-plated and Britannia goods at Cleveland Works, Rockingham Street.   According to the Census (1861), he employed four workers.  Eliza Brown, widow of Wallis Sen., died on 29 March 1868, aged 59.   By then, her son was apparently no longer in business and his subsequent career has not been traced.