This enterprise was a cutler and factor, which was operated by Edmund Gurney Sporle (c.1768-1819) and Joseph Newton (1780-1819).  The Sporles were Quakers.  The family came from Norwich, where Edmund’s father, Dennis Sporle, was a woolcomber.  His mother was Mary Gurney (from another family of Norwich Quakers).  Edmund was granted his Freedom in 1791, after apprenticeship to Anthony Sporle, who was his brother (Leader, 1905-06¹).  In 1796, Edward had married at the Quaker Meeting House at Woodhouse, Melicent, the daughter of Richard Hotham (a Quaker button mould maker at Handsworth Woodhouse).  Joseph Newton was the son of Benjamin (a butcher) and his wife, Ann.  He was apprenticed to Samuel Stanley, a knife maker, in 1793 and became a Freeman in 1801.

Edmund Gurney Sporle went into partnership with the Hothams (see Robert Hotham & Co).  After this ended in 1801, he joined Joseph Newton as a cutler and factor.  This was terminated in 1808.  Newton then formed a brief partnership with Samuel and Betty Hotham (the brother and the widow of the late Robert Hotham).   This ended in 1810.   In the directory (1811), Sporle & Newton was still listed as a table knife manufacturer, Hollis Street.   

In 1818, Edmund Gurney Sporle was a factor and manufacturer at Carver Lane.   Both Sporle and Newton died in May of the following year.  Edmund was buried on 16 May 1819 (burial place untraced); Joseph Newton died at Howard Street and was buried at the parish church on 24 May 1819, aged 39.  The register described him as a factor.

^1. Leader, R E, History of the Company of Cutlers in Hallamshire in the County of York (Sheffield, 1905-6)