The Gouldthorps (or Gouldthorpes) were in the horn trade.  Self-tip handles (made from ox or cow horn tip to show the natural colouring) was a speciality, after the Gouldthorpes became established in Burgess Street (see Gouldthorpe & Greaves).   According to Wilmot Taylor (1927)¹, four generations of the family had the name ‘Henry’ – the third was connected with  Sheffield Horn Works, Rockingham Lane.  He was born in about 1826.  He can be traced in directories at West Street and Wellington Street.  He was based in Rockingham Lane by the 1860s.  Wilmot described Gouldthorpe’s production of self-tip handles as ‘the greatest of all’, and credited him with pioneering the straightening of horn by using boiling water and vices.  Taylor recalled him as ‘a man of portly dimensions, by which fact alone he is not forgotten’.  By 1871, he lived with his wife, Ann, in Nether Edge and described himself in the Census as a ‘master horn cutter’, employing a dozen men and five boys.  In 1886, his business was offered for sale as a ‘going concern’.  Henry Gouldthorpe, Sharrow Lane, was buried at Ecclesall on 27 September 1888, aged 63.

^1. Taylor, Wilmot, The Sheffield Horn Industry (Sheffield, 1927)