The Braithwaite family (sometimes written as Braithwait) was involved in scissors manufacture.   The business can be traced to Richard (c.1793-1857), William (c.1794-1849), and Charles Braithwaite (c.1816-1885), who were brothers from Ravenfield, Rotherham.  Their father was John (c.1761-1821) and mother, Ann Hurst.   By 1828, Richard and William were partners as scissors makers in Bailey Lane.  This was dissolved in 1831.  William’s subsequent business career was brief: he manufactured scissors in Rockingham Street, but was insolvent by 1843 with debts under £300.  He continued business in Carr Lane, but his life was cut short.  William Braithwaite died in Sheffield from Asiatic cholera on 3 October 1849.  He was buried that day in St Philip’s churchyard, Shalesmoor.

Richard, meanwhile, started scissors making in Solly Street.  By 1849, he was a scissors manufacturer in Rockingham Street, using the mark ‘LUZ’ (granted in 1830).   By 1850, he was living in Tinsley and in the Census of the following year described himself as a master scissors manufacturer employing sixteen men.  In 1855, he exhibited at the Paris Exhibition.  He died on 25 October 1857, aged 64, after a ‘severe illness, which he bore with Christian fortitude’.  He was buried in St Lawrence’s churchyard, Tinsley.  He left effects under £1,500.  His wife, Maria, continued the business at 32 Rockingham Street and also defended her late husband’s mark.  ‘LUZ’ was sufficiently well known for Pryor Bros to have a look-alike ‘DIZ’ mark, which Pryor’s agreed to stop using after complaints from Braithwaite (Sheffield Independent, 19 November 1859).  In 1861, £20 reward was offered for information relating to any fraudulent use of ‘LUZ’ (Sheffield Independent, 16 March 1861).   Maria died on 27 September 1865, aged 70, and the firm passed to Sarah Braithwaite – Richard’s and Maria’s daughter.  She seems to have continued to trade until her death on 10 April 1888, aged 66.

Between the 1840s and 1860s, Charles Braithwaite was variously described as a scissors grinder / scissors smith / putter-together in Dun Street or Dorset Street.   In 1862, he was listed as a scissors manufacturer in Wheeldon Lane.  By 1871, he was working in Court 15, St Philip’s Road, and residing in Sumner Street.  He employed three men and a boy.   The firm was described as Charles Braithwaite & Son.  The ‘son’ was apparently Charles Frederick, who in the 1871 Census lived at his father’s Sumner Street address as a scissors smith (and Wesleyan lay preacher).   A younger son, Arthur, was a scissors forger.  Charles Braithwaite died at Buckenham Road on 25 October 1885, aged 71.  He was buried in the General Cemetery.  By the 1890s, no Braithwaites appear to have been involved in the scissors trade.  The ‘LUZ’ mark passed to Robert W. Handley and W. J. Ramsbottom.