John Hardy (1790-1876) was the son of Robert, a cutler, and Hannah.  He was listed in 1828 as a maker of button hooks and corkscrews in Furnival Street.  By 1833, he partnered Henry Hardy (unidentified) in Union Place as a manufacturer of plated dessert knives, stilettos, tweezers, nail files, and corkscrews.  He lived in Hanover Street.  John and Henry dissolved their partnership in 1836.  By 1839, John had moved to Burgess Street.  An advertisement in Drake’s Road Book (1840) showed that Hardy specialised in fancy pearl and polished steel articles for ladies’ and gentlemen’s dress cases and work boxes.  In the Census (1841), he was living in Burgess Street, with his wife, Mary, and sons Robert Edward and Thomas.  The directory also listed him as a shopkeeper.  John and most of his family emigrated to America in 1842.  He sent The Sheffield Independent, 6 April 1844, a detailed account of life in Wisconsin.  After a spell farming, he eventually became a cutlery merchant in Milwaukee, where he died on 20 March 1876, aged 86.