James Dewsnap was born in Sheffield in 1823.  He was the son of John Dewsnap, a fender maker, Garden Street, and his wife Charlotte.   James’s brothers included Simeon and John, who had been born in 1814.   Their father died on 19 January 1856, aged 67, and was buried in the General Cemetery.  James was already an established manufacturer of cabinet cases for cutlery and razor strops.  Several members of the Dewsnap family were involved in the manufacture of cutlery, jewellery, travelling, dressing and razor cases.  But James Dewsnap was the most successful.   His business was said to have been established in 1841 (which must have been when he started work as a teenager); a decade later James told the Census enumerators that he employed 32 men and 32 females.   By then, the business was based at Morocco & Cabinet Works, 10 St Thomas Street.

By the mid-1850s, James and John had formed Dewsnap Bros at the St Thomas Street address.  In the Census (1861), James described himself as a cabinet case maker employing 18 men, 8 boys, and 17 females; and a brass founder employing 11 men and 23 boys.  In 1875, James registered a silver mark.  According to Goins (1998)¹, the Dewsnap name was stamped on pocket knives, scissors, razors, and quill knives.  Culme (1987)² lists the firm’s products.   It continued to expand: in 1881, Dewsnap employed 40 men, 20 boys, and 80 women.  In that year, however, James Dewsnap, Glossop Road, died on 11 September, aged 57.  He was buried in an unconsecrated grave in the General Cemetery, leaving £28,067.  His executors – Tom Bolsover, Richard Parker Greenland, and William Henry Appleby – continued to run the firm at St Thomas Street and at a London showroom in Ely Place, Holborn (Century’s Progress, 1893).  Bolsover and Appleby were the partners, after Greenland withdrew in 1892.   Dewsnap’s supposedly had a workforce of 400.  In 1896, the firm became ‘Ltd’ (capital £20,000), with Robert Belfitt (of Geo. Butler) as a director.  W.H. Appleby was manager in 1902.  By 1919, Dewsnap was based at Sidney Street.  It was liquidated in 1941.

^1. Goins, J  E, and Goins, C, Goins’ Encyclopedia of Cutlery Markings (Indianapolis, 1998)

^2. Culme, John, The Directory of Gold and Silversmiths, Jewellers and Allied Traders 1838-1914 (Woodbridge, Suffolk, 2 vols, 1987)