The early life of this razor manufacturer is obscure: however, he was living with his uncle – also named Edwin Johnson and a razor smith – in Nether Edge in 1861.  (It seems likely that the latter was the Edwin Johnson, razor smith, Oxford Road, who died on 8 December 1865, aged 46, and was buried in the General Cemetery, leaving under £100.)  By 1871, Edwin, his nephew, was a razor setter and in 1879 he apparently started his own enterprise.   In 1895, when he was based in Eyre Street, he advertised in The Foreign Buyers’ Catalogue, which listed a selection of trade names.  On the blade of one razor was the pun:  ‘KAPS AWL’.  By the turn of the century, Johnson was based in Matilda Works, Matilda Street, with a residence in Kitchen Street, Abbeydale Road.  In the Census (1911), he was enumerated as a razor hafter and whetter at Duncombe Street, Walkley.  He died in 1926, aged 79, when he was described as a grinder.   His burial was at Burngreave Cemetery on 19 March.  No obituary has been traced.