The family network of Barlows (see Samuel Barlow, Obadiah Barlow), originators of the Barlow knife, apparently extended to the hamlet of Neepsend.  This was the location of Henry Mills, who had started work at the age of 12 as an apprentice to his father, who was one of Samuel Barlow’s cutlers.  In 1835, aged about 25, Henry had married Mary Barlow (1803-1838), who was Samuel’s sister (Sheffield Independent, 10 October 1835).   

In 1837, Mills was a shopkeeper in Neepsend, but by 1839 was a pen knife manufacture.   In 1849, he advertised as ‘the successor to the original penknives manufactured by the late Samuel Barlow’.  Mills inherited the Barlow mark – a Z and falchion device with the word ‘Barlow’ (first granted in 1725 and apparently transferred to Mills in 1851, after Samuel’s death).   Mills defended his rights in a dispute with another Barlow-knife maker, Luke Oates.  In 1840 and again in 1864, Mills took Oates to court over the use of Oates’s look-alike mark and his claim to be a maker of the ‘old original Barlows’.  Mills later withdrew the action, after Oates apparently promised not to use the mark again – though Oates continued to use the term ‘old original Barlow knife’ on labels (Sheffield Independent, 3, 13 February 1864).

Mills traded with America, where it was said Barlows were sharp enough for shaving.  He sold his knives through merchants such as B. J. Eyre.  The Census (1851) recorded that Mills employed fifteen men in Neepsend.  By 1868, Mills resided at Parkwood Springs, where he owned land.  By the 1870s, trade directories no longer listed his business and he seems to have wound it down.   In 1871, he was ‘partly employing’ fifteen men and two girls.  A decade later, Mills (aged 71) employed only four workmen.   His wife, Mary, had died in 1838, aged 34 (she was buried on 4 December at St Paul’s).  In 1842, Mills married Sarah Ward, the niece of Thomas Ward, a cutlery manufacturer at Bacon Island (Sheffield Independent, 22 January 1842).  His eldest son from this marriage – Thomas Barlow Mills (1843-1902) – became a cutlery manufacturer.  Another son, Henry Barlow Mills (1850-1927), apparently joined his father for a time and in the 1880s operated from Barlow Cutlery Works, Neepsend.   

Henry Mills died at Bridlington Quay, on 28 June 1881.  He was aged 71 and left £423.  Sarah died on 4 January 1889 at Rock House, Parkwood Springs, leaving £85.  She was buried with Henry at Old Priory Church, Bridlington (information from Chris Hobbs' website).   Henry Barlow Mills had retired by 1911: he died at Bridlington on 8 April 1927, leaving £3,195.