Barlow is an old English surname, possibly originating in the Derbyshire village of Barlow.   By the seventeenth century, the Barlow family was active in the Sheffield cutlery trade (Smith, 2001¹).   Some lived in Campo Lane, near the parish church (the present Cathedral).  One was Obadiah Barlow, a Sheffield cutler, who was apprenticed in 1654 and became a Freeman of the Company of Cutlers in 1667.  Obadiah had died by 1713, but his son John also served his apprenticeship and became a Freeman in 1710.  

The Barlow pocket knife had a long bolster, which made the handle more rugged.  Produced at a competitive price, the knife became a classic.  The Campo Lane Barlows used their name as a trademark: ‘BARLOW’ (granted to John Barlow in 1745).  According to Leader (1905)²: ‘[Obadiah] and his descendants manufactured such excellent pen and pocket cutlery as to make their name famous, and their trademark is still a valuable possession in living use’.   During the 1760s, the Barlows traded through the merchant Oborne & Gunning.   John Barlow, Campo Lane, was listed in directories (1774, 1787) as a maker of pen knives.   He died on 27 April 1799 and ‘one of the best businesses in Sheffield died with him’ (Leader, 1905)².   The Barlow family continued to manufacture in cutlery in the nineteenth century, when the name appeared in Neepsend (see Samuel Barlow, Henry Mills). 

^1. Smith, D J, ‘The Old Original Barlow Knives’,  South Yorkshire Industrial History Society Journal, No 2 (2001)

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