Robert Dennis Sporle (1755-1818) was born at St Augustine, Norwich, into a Quaker family.  His father was Dennis, a woolcomber; his mother was Mary Gurney.  Robert had at least three brothers:  Anthony (1752-1783), John (1753-1808), and Edmund Gurney (c.1768-1819).  Anthony, Edmund, and Robert were apprenticed as cutlers.  Their apprenticeships are recorded in Leader (1905-06)¹.  The Sporles developed links with the Hothams and Robert Sutcliff. 

Robert Sporle had been apprenticed to William Shipley, a cutler, in 1771.  He became a Freeman in 1787.  He partnered William Green (a cutler) and John Cooke (an iron merchant, of Swinton).  But this ended in 1792, when Robert Sporle and Edward [sic?] Gurney, plate workers, registered a silver mark at Paradise Street.  in 1792.  They were joined by another Quaker, Samuel Broadhead, to establish Broadhead, Gurney & Sporle at Workhouse Croft, a Britannia metal smith and silver-plated table knife manufacturer.  Robert left in 1811 and was insolvent within two years.  He died on 21 July 1818, aged 63, and had a Quaker burial at Sheffield.   His widow, Elizabeth nee Dent (whom he had married in 1787) died on 11 March 1821.

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