Peter Atherton was probably baptised in 1771, the son of John, a tobacconist.  He was apprenticed to scissors smith Francis Linfitt and gained his Freedom in 1797, Leader (1905-06)¹.  Atherton was reputedly the finest scissors maker in the trade.   His reputation was well established by 1828, when he made two dozen pairs of scissors that weighed no more than a grain.  At a lecture on astronomy at the Music Hall, the speaker put one of Atherton’s tiny pairs of scissors under the microscope.  The local newspaper reminded its readers that the scissors were so minute that 26 pairs were required to weigh one grain! Or 12,480 pairs to balance an ounce!:

The length of the figure, as it appeared in Mr. Roger’s extraordinary microscope was 10 feet! And seemingly as ponderous and massive as the anchor of a first-rate man of war!! The lecturer declared he should retain the scissors as a standing object, illustrative alike of the power of his own instrument, and the astonishing ingenuity of the Sheffield manufacturers (Sheffield Independent, 22 March 1828).

Atherton’s forte was ‘fancy work’ – particularly display and exhibition scissors – in which bows and shanks were decorated by laborious file work.  He was ‘unrivalled’ in this branch of the trade (Sheffield Independent, 16 November 1833); and had ‘wonderful manipulative skill.  He also forged all his work, so that in all departments it passed through his hands’ (Sheffield Independent, 7 December 1874).  Atherton was listed in directories as a manufacturer in his own right (as in 1837 in Spring Street).  He helped Thomas Wilkinson & Son acquire a Royal Warrant.   Atherton filed the celebrated Victoria scissors, which took six weeks’ work and 72 small files.   He completed the scissors in his 70th year.  He died on 17 April 1846, aged 76, at Rock Street, Bridgehouses, and was buried at St Peter & St Paul.

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