The first Josiah Barnes came to Sheffield from Chinley, Derbyshire, and started his cutlery apprenticeship to Joseph Bradbury of Heeley in 1771.   His son, also named Josiah, was apprenticed in 1805 to knife maker Samuel Wilson.   The second Josiah started his own business as a pen and pocket knife and dirk manufacturer.   By the 1830s, he was listed in Radford Street and then Solly Street.  By 1841, he was in Broad Lane.   However, he died on 16 September 1849, aged 57, from an ‘affection of the heart’ after a visit on the preceding day to Castleton, Derbyshire.   He was buried in Portobello.  His obituary described him as a ‘good neighbour, and an honest man’ (Sheffield Independent, 22 September 1849).

His son, John Barnes (1818-1893), was also trained as a spring-knife cutler and took over the business, which in 1851 employed eight workers.  By 1860, the firm – still named Josiah Barnes – was located in Suffolk Street.   The trade mark ‘DURATION’ was used.  John and his father had built up the firm with American orders, mostly from the Southern states, via Charleston.   After the Civil War, however, business slumped and John lost money attempting to export guns to the Confederacy.   But the business of Josiah Barnes survived, helped by John’s third son Edward, his youngest bachelor brother Josiah, and Edward’s large family.   

In 1871, John Barnes employed eight men.  On 21 August 1893 he was found drowned in the River Don, apparently after a night out socialising in the traditional Sheffield manner (he had once been the landlord of Hillsborough Inn).   By then, Edward Barnes (1854-1942) had taken over the business, which had appeared in an 1884 directory as Edward Barnes & Sons, Eagle Place, Carver Street.   By 1918, it had relocated to Progress Works, Sudbury Street.   In the early 1920s, the business ceased and Edward and family moved out of Sheffield to run a village shop and café.  He apparently died at Chesterfield, aged 87.