Jonathan Shaw (c.1765-1836) was a pen and pocket knife manufacturer, who was based at Meadow Street from the early years of the nineteenth century.  He may have been the son of Joseph Shaw, a cutler.  If so, he was baptised on 13 April 1766.  Apprenticeship records listed Jonathan (the son of Joseph, a cutler), who was bound to cutler Luke Marriott in 1780 and became a Freeman in 1791 (Leader, 1905-06¹), It should be noted, though, that another Jonathan Shaw (the son of Jonathan, a maltster) was apprenticed to John Woolhouse, cutler, in 1782 – though there is no record of him becoming a Freeman.   

Jonathan Shaw became part of Shaw, Hunt & Vickers, pen knife makers.  Alexander Hunt and George Vickers were his partners.   They ended this arrangement in 1801.  Jonathan Shaw and Alexander Hunt were subsequently joined, as spring and table knife makers, by Benjamin Woolhouse.  (Benjamin may have been the cutler involved with George Dalton) In 1805, the partnership was dissolved and Shaw and Hunt combined as pen knife cutlers at Meadow Street.  This lasted until 1813, when Jonathan began trading alone at Meadow Street.  He stayed at that address into the 1830s.  In the directory (1833), he was listed as Jonathan Shaw Sen., pen and pocket knife manufacturer at Meadow Street; Jonathan Shaw Jun. was a shoe and butchers’ knife manufacturer at nearby Allen Street.   Jonathan Sen.’s wife, Tabitha, died on 5 August 1835, aged 54.  His death at Meadow Street, a ‘few days ago’ (aged 71), was reported on 19 November 1836.  Their remains were interred at the parish churchyard.

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