Benjamin Woolhouse Ramsden (b. 1850) was the son of George Ramsden, a rate collector, and his wife Eliza.   He began dealing in cutlery, silver, and electro-plate in 1872 at Livingstone Works, Holly Street, and Rockingham Street.   In 1872, he married Norah née Ibbotson, whose family was involved in ivory cutting.   His brother was George Woolhouse Ramsden, who became a silver engraver George Ramsden Sen. died on 14 March 1879, aged 56, and was buried in the General Cemetery.   George Woolhouse Ramsden died on 30 May 1891, aged 46, and was also buried in the General Cemetery.   

At the start of the 1890s, B. W. Ramsden & Co was listed as a table knife manufacturer at 245 Rockingham Street.  However, in 1896 Ramsden became insolvent, when it was at Lion Works, Eyre Lane.   Both Benjamin and Norah are known to have visited America in 1879 (and one of their sons, Wallace, had been born there in 1882).   Benjamin returned to Meriden, Connecticut, in 1897.   It was a centre of American silver and electro-plate production.  In the US Census (1900), he was living at Meriden and working as a metal solderer.  In the following year, the Census in England & Wales recorded that Norah was still living in Sheffield.  She died there on 3 July 1929, aged 79.  Her husband’s later life in the USA is untraced.  More is known about their son, Omar Ramsden (1873-1939), who became a renowned silver designer.  His life is profiled in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, though some of the details about his parents are inaccurate.