Joseph Holmes (1786-1870) was a pen and pocket knife maker.   He may have been the son of Benjamin Holmes (a cutler) and his wife, Jane.  If so, he was born on 12 March 1786.   He established himself at Cross Smithfield, where he was listed in a directory in 1837.  He apparently became insolvent in the late 1830s, but was discharged in 1840.  By the following year, the Cross Smithfield business was styled Joseph Holmes & Son.   The son was Joseph Jun., who had apparently been born on 26 May 1813 (the son of Joseph, a cutler, and Ann).

An 1849 trade advertisement proclaimed Holmes’ as a maker of ‘Superior Cutlery’.   The firm made Bowie knives, including one rugged specimen in Flayderman (2004)¹.   By 1852, Joseph Sen., was living in Morpeth Street (his usual address in the Census was Hoyle Street) and Joseph Jun. at Wentworth Street.  The workshop was in Bridge Street, but moved to Ellis Street between 1854 and 1856.  Joseph Holmes Sen. died at Shepherd Street (where his son lived and worked) on 5 November 1870, aged 84, and was buried at Burngreave Cemetery.  His son continued to work into the 1880s as a spring knife cutler and, finally, finisher.  Joseph Holmes, Shepherd Street,

^1. Flayderman, Norm, The Bowie Knife: Unsheathing an American Legend (Woonsocket, RI, 2004)