Robert Owen was a pen and pocket knife manufacturer, who was listed in the Sheffield directory in 1774.  Presumably, this was the individual, based at Westbar Green, who had been Master Cutler in 1772/3.   His trade mark was ‘GOLD +’.  R. E. Leader, on the basis of the apprenticeship records of the Company of Cutlers, suggested that originally the family was involved in coal mining (Leader, 1905-6¹).  Robert was likely the son of Joseph Owen, who had been Master Cutler in 1754/5.  In 1771, Joseph had resigned his Freedom ‘on account of great age and infirmities’; the Company assenting to the transfer of his mark to his son, Robert.  Joseph was buried at the parish church on 19 December 1773, the burial register noting that he was ‘Master Cutler’.   Leader added that Joseph had another son, Joseph (Assistant at the Company of Cutlers, 1772-77), who may have also been a pub landlord in Market Place.

Robert Owen was listed in directories as a pen and pocket knife maker at Westbar Green in 1787 and again in 1797 (when the enterprise had become ‘& Son).   The firm made Barlow knives – one of which, hafted in bone and marked ‘GOLD’, is shown in Moore (2021)².  Robert Owen, of Westbar Green, died on 30 September 1796 (Leeds Intelligencer, 3 October 1796).  His burial was at the parish churchyard.  He apparently had a son, Joseph, who was apprenticed in 1788, but did not become a Freeman.  In the next Sheffield directory (1811), the Owen name had disappeared.

^1. Leader, R E, History of the Company of Cutlers in Hallamshire in the County of York (Sheffield, 1905-6)

^2. Moore, Simon, ‘A Synopsis of Pocket Knives in History and the Evolution of Spring-backed Pocket Knives in Sheffield During the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries’, Journal of Antique Metalware Society 26 (2021)