In 1848, 43-year-old John Clarke launched a cutlery business in Harvest Lane in Neepsend.  Clarke apparently entered the trade late in life.  An apprenticeship indenture (once in possession of the late Jim Taylor in the USA) stated that John Clarke (the son of John, a mason) was apprenticed to Octavius Twigg, a razor maker.  The indenture (listed in Leader, 1905-6) showed that Clarke was granted his Freedom in 1856, with the mark ‘NEVA’.  By the 1860s, Thomas (Clarke’s son by his wife Elizabeth, who died on 8 December 1863, aged 63) had joined the firm.  When John Clarke died at his home at Augusta Place, Rock Street, on 25 July 1873 (aged 68), only six workmen were employed.  By 1881, Thomas had expanded the number to twenty.  He sold a wide range of cutlery and was also an ‘emigration agent’, helping to recruit personnel for American cutlery centres (Sheffield Independent, 7 September 1886). 

Clarke’s showroom displayed knives from ‘5/16ths-inch long (perfect miniatures), to the most expensive sportsman’s knives, gold and silver mounted, containing every article a sportsman can require’ (The Century’s Progress, 1893).  Table knives and carvers were also manufactured (or factored).  Agencies were opened in London, New York, and Melbourne.  Besides ‘NEVA, the ‘EXPRESS’ and ‘RING’ marks were used on razors; and Clarke’s marketed the American ‘GEM’ safety razor.  By 1899, the firm had moved to Mowbray Street, where its Mowbray Works overlooked the River Don.  Thomas Clarke died at Harrogate on 26 April 1902, aged 62, and was buried in the same cemetery as his parents: Burngreave.  He left £4,245.  In 1904, Clarke’s became a private limited company, with a capital of £15,000.  Thomas’s sons, John Roome Clarke (1860-1925) and Thomas Edward Clarke, were directors.  George William Clarke (another son) was a shareholder.

Razors and spring knives were important lines of business.  In 1913, Clarke’s was awarded a contract by the Admiralty for 10,000 hollow-ground razors.  Clarke’s also supplied regulation Army knives and scout knives.  In about 1909, Clarke’s had acquired the ‘I CUT MY WAY’ mincing knife mark of ‘William Rodgers’.  Supposedly Wm. Rodgers was established in 1830, but the mark had been registered by Thomas Hobson.  Under Clarke, ‘WILLIAM RODGERS’ became a stand-alone name (often used in preference to Clarke’s), presumably because it had echoes of Joseph Rodgers & Sons.   The latter once challenged Clarke’s over the use of the name ‘Rodgers’, after that name alone (and not ‘William Rodgers’) was used in advertising (Sheffield Daily Telegraph, 19 June 1929).  John Holmes & Co was also listed between the 1920s and the early 1950s at Mowbray Works, which may have been another name owned by Clarke’s.

John Roome Clarke was once cited as co-respondent in a London divorce case by Richard Thomas Hahn, a cutlery salesman.  Clarke paid £600 damages (Sheffield Evening News, 8 June 1915).   J. R. Clarke died on the evening of 3 February 1925, aged 64.   Walking to the cinema with his wife, he was run over by a motor ambulance as he chased his hat across a windswept Barnsley Road.  He was buried in Burngreave, leaving £6,197.  His son, John Clarke, of Crimicar Lane, remained as the senior partner.  Clarke’s was one of the last producers of hand-made pocket knives; and it had a large output of sheath knives for scouting associations.  According to Reg Cooper, tens of thousands of sheath knives were made each year after the Second World War.   Stan Shaw worked at the factory during the 1960s, when the owner was John ‘Jack’ Clarke (1892-1974).  The latter died on 1 March 1974, leaving £192,170.  The firm had been liquidated in 1964, but the company name was resurrected.  Its last address after 1980 was 65 Garden Street.   The Wm. Rodgers’ mark passed to Meteor Industries and then to Egginton.