Martin Wolstenholme (1758-1844) was the son of Henry (1729-1803) and his wife, Ann née Hardy (1731-1789).  Henry had been baptised at Eckington, the son of George Wostinholme (occupation unknown).  Henry became a fork maker, who was buried at St Paul’s Church on 14 April 1803.  According to the records of the Company of Cutlers, after apprenticeship (presumably to his father) Martin was granted his Freedom in 1780.   It seems likely that he was the younger brother of George Wolstenholme (who was the founder of George Wostenholm & Son).   Martin Woolstenholm – the family name was variously spelled – appeared in the Sheffield directory (1797) as a fork maker at 6 Cheney Square, near St Paul’s Church.   

In 1805, Martin Wostenholm was listed, alongside other partners (Peter Dakin, John Smith, James Mappin, and John Cutt), as a fender manufacturer.  In the following year, he partnered Joshua Gregory and John Ashmore, as a cutlery manufacturer.  According to Leader (1905)¹, Gregory was clerk to James Wilkinson, Vicar of Sheffield, and was ‘accustomed to stand behind [his] carriage like a footman’.  When his master died in 1805, he joined Wostenholm in the table-knife trade.  Ashmore withdrew in 1806 and Wostenholm & Gregory continued to trade.  The cutlery venture did not last long.  By 1811, the Sheffield directory listed Gregory, Mappin & Co, table knife manufacturers, Sheffield Moor; and Gregory, Wostenholm, Cutt & Co, fender and candlestick manufacturers, Arundel Street.  Besides Martin Wostenholm, the fender business accumulated several partners, including Joshua Gregory, William Fishbourne, Samuel Mappin, Richard Walker, and John Cutt.  This arrangement ended in 1811.  In 1816, Martin was again listed as fork maker, this time at South Street.  His address in 1821 was Porter Street, with a residence at Surrey Street.

Martin Wostenholm was known as ‘a fork manufacturer of some repute in his day, but, unfortunately, he had a wild son, who ultimately with sorrow brought his father’s grey hairs to the grave’ (Sheffield Independent, 29 August 1901).  The son was Thomas Wilson Wolstenholme (1795-1860), who his father had taken in partnership.  This was dissolved in 1820 and Martin’s next address was Duke Street.  In 1821, Thomas was listed as a hair seating manufacturer, living at Sheffield Moor, but was bankrupt in 1823.  He auctioned his household effects at Meadow Street (Sheffield Independent, 19 April 1823).  In 1835, he was convicted of receiving stolen ironmonger’s goods and sentenced at Surrey Sessions, Newington, to seven years transportation to Australia (Morning Herald, 16 February 1835).  In the Census (1841), Martin was retired and living at Brocco Street.  He died in 1844 and was buried at St Paul’s Church on 23 July.  His son died in 1860 in Tasmania.

¹. Leader, R. E., Sheffield in the Eighteenth Century (Sheffield, 2nd edn., 1905)