Leader (1905-06)¹ listed John Barber – son of Paul Barber of Little Sheffield – as an apprentice to razor maker John Fell in 1802.  John Barber (identity uncertain) also partnered Samuel Butcher until 1816.  Possibly, the John Barber (son of Paul) may have started his own business in razors and razor strops at 29 South Street.  Table knives and forks ‘of superior quality’ were also advertised.  Barber described himself as successor to George Shepherd, the maker of ‘WOLF’ razors.  Barber’s own mark was ‘JOHN BARBER’ above a set-square and compass (granted to Barber in 1823).   In 1825, an American visitor met Barber and remarked that his:

wares are known the world over, and have become so celebrated, as to induce others to counterfeit his stamp.  He informed me that he had just sent £10 to the United States, to be expended in advertisements and in cautioning the public against these frauds, as the sale of goods under his name not only curtails his business, but injures his reputation … Mr Barber took us to every part of his manufactory, and initiated us into the mystery of his art.  His razors all pass through his own hands, before they receive his mark.  About two hundred dozen are manufactured in a week and dispatched to every part of the globe.  We saw a parcel finished in elegant style with the names of some of our most distinguished citizens stamped upon the handles, made to the order of a firm of hardware merchants at Albany (Carter, 1827).

By 1828, Barber had moved his business and residence to 14 Norfolk Street.  In 1833, the business was listed as ‘& Son’ and the ‘WOLF’ mark transferred to John’s eldest son, Thomas (1805-1834).  John Barber died on 13 April 1834, aged 52.  An obituarist commented: ‘His name will be remembered by the commercial world, as the celebrated manufacturer of the Old English Razor’ (Sheffield Independent, 19 April 1834).  Within a few months, Thomas died ‘after a short illness’ on 14 July 1834, aged 29.  This left John’s widow, Martha (c.1782-1846), and her two other sons – John Jun. (1810-16 September 1844) and George James (1821-23 June 1840) – as inheritors of the business.  In 1837, Martha posted an advertisement from Norfolk Street warning of a spurious advertisement by Frederick William Barber, who claimed to be ‘late John Barber’ (Sheffield Independent, 9 December 1837).  Robson’s Directory (1839) had a prominent advertisement for the ‘genuine’ John Barber & Son, as a manufacturer of razors, table, pen and pocket knives of ‘a first-rate quality’.

After John Jun.’s death, Martha was apparently in sole charge.  She died on 28 October 1846, aged 64, and was buried (with the other members of the family) in St George’s churchyard, Portobello.  The marks passed from Martha to Jane, the widow of John Barber Jun. (Sheffield Independent, 7 April 1869).  She rented them at £57 10s to Stephen Martin, who in 1847 resumed production of Barber’s ‘Old English Razors’.  Martin had been born in Ranby, Huntingdonshire, and in 1829 had married Eliza, the eldest daughter of John Barber.  Martin operated from Norfolk Street and Sycamore Street; he lived at Taptonville.  He won a Prize Medal at the Great Exhibition (1851).  He employed 50 workers in 1861.  He died on 5 August 1865, aged 63, at the home of his son-in-law, Gideon Enfield, at Benwick, Cambridgeshire.  He was buried in the General Cemetery.

In 1864, John Arthur Warburton Barber (1844-1919), the grandson of John Barber, announced in the local press that he had attained his majority and had started razor and cutlery manufacture at Portland Works, West Street (Sheffield Independent, 24 September 1864).  The old Barber name and marks (rented by Barber from his mother, Mrs Jane Wright, for £80 a year) were seen again in Sheffield and Birmingham directories.  By the late 1860s, he was trading from Norfolk Cutlery Works, Norfolk Street.  In 1871, Barber employed twenty men and two boys.  But he was unable to emulate his grandfather’s success and by the end of the 1870s he was bankrupt, and his warehouse stock destroyed by a fire (Sheffield Daily Telegraph, 5 February 1880).  This time the Barber business disappeared for good, though the marks were later used by Allen & Son and Joseph Elliot.

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