Samuel Hague apparently began his career as a pen and pocket knife maker in about 1833, when he worked in Siddall Street, off Broad Lane. He partnered John Dodworth, but this was dissolved in 1836. He continued at Eldon Street and adjacent Devonshire Lane. Despite only employing six men, Hague won a Prize Medal at the Great Exhibition in 1851 for his ‘Fancy penknives, varying in the number of blades, with corkscrews, silver pencils, etc.; and handles of tortoiseshell, mother-of-pearl, ivory, and horn’. Little is known of Hague himself, though his first wife, Sarah, died in 1837 (aged 21) from ‘consumption’; and his second, Ann, in 1855 (aged 59) from ‘bronchitis’. Both were buried in the General Cemetery. In the early 1860s, Hague was listed at Burgess Street and then Coldwell Lane, but apparently relinquished knife manufacture after 1863 and moved to Shirebrook in Heeley. Samuel Hague, ‘gentleman’ and presumably the cutler, died (aged 78) on 11 December 1869 at Meersbrook Cottage in Albert Road, Heeley. He was interred in an unconsecrated grave in the General Cemetery.