This business can be traced to Law, Atkin & Oxley, which since the early 1820s manufactured gold and silver dessert knives and forks in Eyre Street.  (This firm had links to John Law, an earliest maker of Sheffield Plate.) By 1829, two partners – Henry Atkin (1804-1853) and John Oxley – had launched their own business in Eyre Street and registered a silver mark.  Their output included silver fruit-knives.  In 1841, Atkin, Oxley & Co was dissolved, and Henry Atkin started his own firm in Howard Street.  He registered a silver mark in that year.  Henry Atkin died on 14 February 1853, aged 48, and was described in The Sheffield Independent, 19 February 1853, as ‘a man of superior intelligence and fine judgment’, who numbered among his personal friends ‘some of the most notable individuals of his day’.  He was buried at Underbank Unitarian Chapel, near Stannington.  In 1828, Henry had married Mary née Wright.  Their sons formed Atkin Bros.