Members of the Davy family settled in Sheffield in the eighteenth century. Often they came from Keighley, Yorkshire; some were Quakers.  In a Sheffield directory (1811), Barker, Davy & Co – merchants and manufacturers in Union Street – was listed. The partners, who ended their arrangement in 1816, were William Barker and David Davy. In 1821, David Davy & Co was listed as a merchant and table knife manufacturer at Eyre Street. The firm also appeared in the directories of 1822 and 1825. Confusingly, David Davy, table knife manufacturer, was also listed in 1821 at White Rails. By 1825, David Davy, ivory scale cutter, was active at Brocco.

Identifying these individual is difficult.  One of them may have been David Davy (1768-1846), who was born at Laycock, near Keighley, the son of Joseph (a stuff weaver) and his wife, Lydia. By 1793, when he married Amelia Broadhead – the daughter of  a grocer – David Davy was a cutler in Sheffield. He was also a Quaker. He married again in 1798 to Ann Priest, the daughter of a Sheffield cutler.  David Davy died from ‘natural decay’ at his home at Regent Street on 27 February 1846, aged 77. He was buried in the General Cemetery. A brief obituary noted that he was ‘universally respected’ as a member of the Society of Friends (Sheffield Independent, 7 March 1846). But how long he was active as a cutler is unknown.  Apparently, none of his nine children was named David, so presumably other ‘David Davys’ were from different branches of the family.