William Edward Blyde (1838-1896) was a partner with his brother Edwin Blyde in W. & E. Blyde & Co, surgical instrument, truss, and spring knife manufacturers, Eyre Street.   They were the sons of James Blyde.  After a dispute with Sarah Ellison Blyde (Sheffield Independent, 3 December 1864),  by the mid-1860s William had ended the partnership with Edwin and started his own company.  In 1868, he was based in Howard Street as a surgical instrument, cutlery, and buffalo [horn] knob maker.  He then became a cutlery dealer and by the end of the 1870s appears to have abandoned cutlery and become a manufacturer of steel, files, and wire drawer’s plates at Alexandra Steel Works, 96 Carver Street.  In the 1881 Census, he was enumerated at Rose Bank, Totley, as an employer of 31 workers.   He had retired by 1891 and then apparently moved to Morecambe.  He died suddenly at Bolton-le-Sands, Carnforth, on 8 July 1896.   He left £1,364.