The Dewsnap family (sometimes spelled Dewsnop) came from Whitfield, a small hamlet south of Glossop, Derbyshire.  These Dewsnaps were masons and slaters, but in the early eighteenth century a few were apprenticed as cutlers.  Joshua Dewsnap (probably baptised in 1722 at Glossop) was the son of Robert, a slater at Whitfield.  He became a Freeman in 1749.  Six years earlier he had married Sarah Norton.  He was probably the Joshua Dewsnap, who was listed in Sheffield’s first directory (1774) as a silver cutler at Trinity Street.  He did not apparently register a silver mark at the Assay Office and his name did not appear in the next Sheffield directory (1781).  

Joshua’s son was named Joshua, too, and was probably baptised in Sheffield in 1749.  He was apprenticed to his father in 1768 and became a Freeman in 1776.  His trade mark was ‘SOUND’.  Meanwhile, in 1770 he had married Ann Dewsbury.   They had several children, some of whom – Isaac (bapt. 1772), John (bapt. 1778), Abraham (bapt. 1784), and Benjamin (bapt. 1782) – were apprenticed as cutlers.  Isaac became a Freeman in 1810.  In 1787, Joshua Dewsnap was listed as a maker of silver plated table knives (using ‘SOUND’ as a trade mark) at Trinity Street.  He then disappeared from directories.  The burial of Joshua Dewsnap on 1 March 1787 at St Peter & St Paul churchyard may be significant.  Joshua’s brother was John Dewsnap.