Bunting was one of the first Sheffield makers of Bowie knives.  He was listed in Radford Street in 1822.  By 1828, he had moved to Regent Street and by 1833 was concentrating on knives for the American market, including ‘Self-defence knives’.  In 1839, his trade advertisement listed American hunting knives and Bowies.  At this time, Robert was working with his sons – Richard, George, and Abner.  By 1840, Abner was an innkeeper and Robert’s partnership with George and Richard had been dissolved.  During the 1840s, Robert and Richard (who had been born in Stannington) continued working together manufacturing lock and sneck knives and dirks, besides table, pen and pocket cutlery.   Several fine Bunting Bowie knives are pictured in Flayderman (2004)¹, including one interesting example with a dual marking.  The extra stamp on the blade is ‘W. Greaves & Sons’, which suggests that Bunting sometimes relied on Greaves to market its products in the USA.

Robert Bunting, ‘table knife manufacturer’, Regent Street, died from ‘lumbago’ on 2 July 1850, aged 74.  His unconsecrated burial was in the General Cemetery.  (Abner, wine and spirit vaults, Castle Street,  had died on 2 August 1841, aged 27, and had been buried in the same grave.) The business passed to Richard.  By 1856, the latter had relocated (alongside his son, Henry) to Boston Works, Milton Street.  The business became Richard Bunting & Son, with the owner living at Cherry Tree Hill.  Bunting’s continued in Milton Street during the 1860s, with an American agent in Platt Street, New York.  After the American Civil War, the business declined.  In 1865, the entire spring-knife cutlery stock of Boston Works (and two tons of cast steel made by local steel maker Wardlow) was auctioned, though Richard Bunting & Son remained listed in Milton Street (Sheffield Independent, 20 March 1865).  In 1869, it was announced that Mr Bunting at Boston Works was giving up business.  The auction included a patented machine for ‘ornamental caps and bolsters’ – possibly for Bowie knives (Sheffield Independent, 17 February 1869).  The burial registers of the General Cemetery (unconsecrated) record Henry Bunting’s death, aged 39, in Winter Street, on 18 June 1870.  Richard lived on alone: the 1871 Census found him living in Westgrove, Winter Street, with a single domestic, and still a ‘working cutler’.  In the early 1870s, his last address was Columbia Works, West Street.  He died, aged 74, at Radford Place, St Philip’s Road, on 12 August 1876, and was buried with his wife (Ruth), son (Henry) and teenage daughter (Amelia) in the General Cemetery.

^1. Flayderman, Norm, The Bowie Knife: Unsheathing an American Legend (Woonsocket, RI, 2004)