John Hall was listed in 1828 as a manufacturer of fancy, sneck, Spanish, and pen knives in Coalpit Lane (later Cambridge Street). The address was later given as Patten’s Shop, Coalpit Lane (see George Patten). In 1833, he was listed at 57 Coalpit Lane as a pen knife manufacturer. Apparently, he partnered Abraham Davy, but this was dissolved in 1833. 

Hall continued to be listed as a cutlery manufacturer in Coalpit Lane, trading as a partner in Hall & Waterson, manufacturers of Chinese, French-lock and Spanish knives, and spring dirks. The firm also traded as scale and haft pressers. (Chinese knives had pressed horn scales, with a neat device cut in the boss. See Leader, 1905 ¹).  Hall’s partner is not identified, but may have been James Waterson, who was the publican at Three Stags’ Heads in Pinstone Street and later at Red House Tavern in Solly Street. The trade mark was ‘STETTIN’, formerly used by Samuel Naylor.  In 1841, Hall & Waterson was insolvent. 

By 1845, directories show John Hall combining making pocket, lock and self-defence knives with the running of The Sportsman pub in Westbar Green.  In 1849, Hall was listed as a cutlery manufacturer and publican at the Bay Horse in Westbar Green. John Hall’s subsequent career is more difficult to trace with certainty. In the 1850s, it seems likely that he was the ‘John Hall’, who manufactured spring knives and operated the Moon Inn, Silver Street. He had been born in about 1801 and was a licensed victualler and widower, living in 1851 with his daughter, Rosina (d. 1855, aged 26), and several lodgers in Queen Street. By 1862, he appears to have been running the Moon full-time. Another John Hall (c.1830-1864), who was a cutler at the Full Moon in Silver Street, may have been his son.

John Hall Sen., cutler, Barrack Tavern, Owlerton Road, died on 3 January 1868, aged 67, and was buried in the General Cemetery.

¹ Leader, R. E., Sheffield in the Eighteenth Century (Sheffield, 2nd edn., 1905)