Born in about 1820 in Brampton, near Chesterfield, John Rawson was working as a razor manufacturer by 1841, with a house in Wellington Street.  By the end of the 1840s, he was located in Fargate.  In about 1850, he briefly partnered Charles Youle in Carver Street.  By 1861, Rawson was operating alone as a razor manufacturer in Westfield Terrace, with a dozen men.  (Youle, who appears to have suffered from deafness, became an etcher and gilder and died on 28 June 1905, aged 80.)  John Rawson continued in Westfield Terrace (with a house in Cemetery Road), employing six men and two girls in 1881.  He died, aged 63, on 6 June 1883, and was buried in the General Cemetery.   He left £2,424.