In about 1830, John Murfin and his partner William Sanderson were active as fork manufacturers at Backfields.  In that year, Sanderson & Murfin was fined £10 for paying wages in goods instead of money (Leeds Intelligencer, 13 May 1830).   Murfin’s previous life is obscure.   However, he may have been born in Ecclesfield (the son of Benjamin) and baptised on 28 June 1801.  John Murfin appeared in the Sheffield directory (1828) as a tailor and clothes dealer at Bailey Street.  After the break with Sanderson, Murfin continued as a fork and butchers’ steel manufacturer at Rockingham Street.  He combined this with running a beerhouse.  He was briefly insolvent in 1837; but in 1841 he was still plying his trade as fork maker at Rockingham Street.  John Murfin – presumably this fork maker – was buried at St Mary’s, Ecclesfield, on 30 June 1843, aged 42.