John Wreaks was a scissors manufacturer (1762-1829), who may have been the son of Marmaduke Wreaks.  The latter was listed in 1787 as a hairdresser and toy man in High Street.  If so, John was apprenticed to Robert Hinchliffe (possibly this one) in 1776 and became a Freeman of the Company of Cutlers in 1787 (Leader, 1905-06¹).  In the 1790s, John Wreaks was in partnership as a scissors manufacturer with John Tillotson and Robert Smith.  This was dissolved in 1796 and Wreaks & Tillotson was launched.  (John Tillotson may have been a member of the Tillotsons in Coalpit Lane.) Wreaks & Tillotson manufactured fine scissors, using the trade mark ‘CEBES 1716’.   When this partnership was dissolved in 1798, Wreaks continued alone – first in Arundel Street (1811), then Carver Street (1816), and finally Charles Street (1825).  Wreaks sold (or factored) a wide range of products: silver smiths’, metal smiths’, and cutlers’ shears and nippers; pruning and flowers scissors; pruning shears; and fine scissors.   John Wreaks died at Charles Street on 4 May 1829, aged 67, and was buried in St Paul’s churchyard.

^1. Leader, R E, History of the Company of Cutlers in Hallamshire in the County of York (Sheffield, 1905-6)