John and William Burgin may have been brothers: coincidentally, both their spouses were named ‘Emma’ and they sometimes lived in the same roads (though at different times).   John was born in about 1819; William in about 1821.  Their background is unclear, though a William Burgin had been active in the pen knife trade in the Park between the 1820s and 1850s.  

John Burgin was enumerated in the 1851 Census in Pinfold Street:  his works address, where he made spring knives, was in a courtyard in Norfolk Street.  John employed nine men and four boys.  William at that time was a cutler in Lord Street, Park.  By 1862, Burgin Bros had been formed at Clegg’s Works, Jessop Street.   By 1868, it had been restyled John & William Burgin.  In 1868, they lived at 55 and 60 Washington Road.  and After 1871, this partnership appears to have been dissolved.  In 1879, William was based in Reliance Works, Bolsover Street (see Edwin Terry).  By 1881, William was employing only one man and a boy, and living in Bramall Lane.  John was a spring knife cutler living in Mount Pleasant Road.   Only John Burgin was listed by 1888.  He died on 3 February 1897, Thorpe Road, aged 76, and was buried in the General Cemetery.  An enterprise named Joseph Burgin & Son was active as a pen and pocket knife manufacturer in Carver Street in the early 1890s (with Joseph Edward Burgin as a partner), but it had disappeared by 1898.