William Dearden (c.1737-1818) was a scissor smith, who married Mary Ashton (c.1738-1811).  They had a large family, including several sons: John (1760-1815), William (c.1771-1827), Mark (c.1780-1851), and Luke (c.1784-1852).  John – baptised on New Year’s Day 1761 – was apprenticed to George Wood (a scissor smith) and became a Freeman in 1786 (when his trade mark, ‘KING HEROD’, was issued.  He was listed in the directory of 1787 as a scissors maker at Smithfield.   He partnered Lydia Bright in John Dearden & Co, though this was dissolved in 1789.  (Lydia is unidentified, though she was a widow and presumably the Widow Bright listed in the directory of 1787 as a table knife cutler at Hollis Croft, using the trademark ‘CHEAPSIDE’.) John Dearden later moved to Copper Street, though he became insolvent.  A printed broadsheet (held by Sheffield Local Studies Library and available on Picture Sheffield) advertised an auction on 13 January 1796 at John Dearden’s workshops at Copper Street.  The sheet was headed ‘Working Tools, Scissars, Steel, and Household Furniture To be Sold … for the Benefit of Creditors’. 

The directory of 1797, however, still listed John Dearden at Copper Street with the ‘KING HEROD’ mark.  Meanwhile, his brother Luke was working as a scissor smith at nearby Cross Smithfield.   John was not listed in the directory of 1811.  He joined Joseph Hartley, Benjamin Rose, and Richard Wood.  Their enterprise – Hartley, Wood & Co, merchant and ironmonger (formerly Hartley & Wood, Workhouse Croft) – was dissolved by the start of 1812.   Hartley, Dearden & Co was the ‘successor’, but that firm ended within a year.  It was replaced by Dearden, Hartley & Co, file manufacturer, after the addition of George Frith.  In 1815, however, John Dearden, scissorsmith of Copper Street, died and was buried at St Peter & St Paul churchyard on 15 March, aged 54.  His executrix and executor were his widow, Elizabeth Longden (c1761-1827), and their son, John (bapt.1788-1835).  They ended their involvement with Hartley and Frith in 1818.  In that year William Dearden died, aged 79.   His role (if any) in the various Dearden partnerships is unknown and he never seems to have appeared in a directory.

John Dearden Jun. next partnered fellow scissor manufacturers Mark Dearden (his brother) and Jonathan Badger.  The latter had married in 1794 Lydia Dearden (c.1774-1838), who was perhaps John Jun’s sister.  This partnership, too, ended in 1817, when Badger withdrew.  In the 1820s, the Deardens continued to trade at Copper Street and the surrounding backstreets.  Unravelling the various enterprises is difficult.  ‘Widow Dearden’ was listed briefly 1821 as a scissors manufacturer at 19 & 20 Copper Street.  Presumably, this was Elizabeth, the widow of John Sen. She died in 1827 (aged 66) and was interred at St Peter & St Paul graveyard (where several Deardens were buried).   John Dearden Jun. apparently branched into file manufacture.  Until 1822, he co-partnered Thomas Procter in Procter & Dearden, file manufacturer.  He then traded alone as a scissors and cut nail manufacturer at 11 & 12 Cooper Street (listed in 1825).  Other Deardens listed in directories at this time included Luke (scissor smith) at Cross Smithfield; and William & Mark, scissor manufacturers, Cross Smithfield.  Confusingly, in 1828 two Dearden firms had entries in the local directory: John & Joseph Dearden, scissors and cut nail manufacturer, 11 & 12 Copper Street; and J. & J. Dearden, manufacturers of scissors, nails, and clasps, Gibraltar Street. 

In 1829, John Dearden and his co-partners in file manufacture – Thomas Wilgos and George Hoyland – became insolvent.  Dearden’s bankruptcy sale at Copper Street included cast steel scissors, razors, table knives, pen and pocket knives, shoe and butchers’ knives, files, clasps, patten springs and ties, brown papers eight years old, and pattern cards of cutlery.  Also offered were furnace tools and rolled, tilted, and bar steel (Sheffield Independent, 11 April 1829).  John Dearden resumed trading in the 1830s as a file, shoe and butchers’ knives manufacturer.  An individual of that same was buried at St Peter & St Paul on 12 July 1835.  He was described as a ‘grinder’ of Copper Street, aged 43 (though that age does not quite tally with his year of baptism).

In the Census (1851) Mark Dearden was working as a warehouseman.  He died on 5 October 1851, aged 71, at 43 Copper Street.  His consecrated burial was in the General Cemetery.  In 1851, Luke Dearden was working as a scissor smith at Doncaster’s Yard, Scotland Street.  He was assisted by his son, Jabez (1818-1860).  Luke, of Allen Street, was buried at St Paul’s churchyard on 22 January 1852, aged 68.   The last directory entry for the Dearden scissors family was in 1852, when James, a scissor manufacturer, was listed at Yard 120 Scotland Street.   This was probably John Jun.’s son.