James Parkinson was first listed in Sheffield General & Commercial Directory (1821) as a table knife manufacturer at 58 Pea Croft.  His wife was Lydia, who died on 15 November 1824 (the burial has not been traced).  James was listed at Pea Croft until 1837, but in 1841 his works address as a table, desk, and fruit knife manufacturer was 20 Radford Street; residence Western Bank.   In the 1841 Census, he was living at Western Bank (probably at Leavy Greave).   By 1845, Parkinson was living at Gell Street.  His last listing was in Slater’s Directory of Important English Towns (1847) as a table knife manufacturer at Radford Street.  His name was absent in the 1849 Sheffield Directory. 

The General Cemetery register recorded the burial of a James Parkinson, Gell Street, on 25 January 1847.  However, there is a complication: unusually, no age is given.   According to one transcription of the General Cemetery Register (on CD by the General Cemetery) the individual was an ‘infant’.  However, Sheffield Records Online has ‘merchant’.  It is likely to be James Parkinson, the table knife manufacturer, though unfortunately the obituary notices in The Sheffield Independent do not list anyone of that name in January 1847.  It seems that James Parkinson died in obscurity.