James Cowen – whose full name was apparently George James Cowen – was born in Sheffield in about 1830, the son of Henry (a cutler) and Sarah.  He and his family operated as both cutlers and grocers / publicans.  James himself was probably the table knife cutler, whose parents were enumerated as warehouse workers in Sycamore Street in the Census (1851).  By 1861, James was living in Cemetery Road with his wife, Elizabeth (c.1831-1901), and two sons, George Henry (1854-1922) and James Roger (1857-1923).  He was a table knife hafter.

In 1862, James Cowen was listed as a spring knife manufacturer in Coldwell Lane; and an egg and butter dealer in South Street (with a residence in Fitzwilliam Street).  In the directory (1868), James Cowen & Sons was listed in Eyre Lane as a manufacturer of table cutlery, plated desserts, and fish carvers.  The ‘sons’ were George Henry Cowen and James Roger Cowen, living at 23 Cemetery Road.  According to the Census (1871), James Cowen was a table knife manufacturer, living in Sherrington Road with Elizabeth (a grocer and general dealer) and his sons, with George Henry working as a ‘clerk in a cutlery manufactory’.  The Sheffield directory (1871) listed James Cowen as a shop keeper in Sherrington Road, with James Cowen also appearing as a spring knife manufacturer, Coldwell Lane, and living at 23 Cemetery Road.

James Cowen & Sons advertised in The Watchmaker, Jeweller and Silversmith’s Trade Journal (1 June 1875) at Industry Works, Cambridge Street (late of Queen’s Works, Division Street).  Cowen claimed 21 years’ service with Joseph Rodgers & Sons.  The firm was liquidated in 1877, after it was listed at Albion Works, Backfields (1876).  It remained listed in Cambridge Street (1879), and was again at Queen’s Works, Division Street (1884).  James Cowen was meanwhile running a beer house in Tinsley Road.  By 1891, James Cowen Sen. was living with Elizabeth in Sedan Street, Pitsmoor, amongst the big steel works.  James R. Cowen was a grocer and beer seller in that street between 1887 and 1893.  Meanwhile James Cowen Sen. appears to have continued as a table knife manufacturer in Charlotte Street, where he was perhaps helped by his son, George Henry, who was a table knife manufacturer and manager in the 1880s and 1890s.  James Cowen, ‘cutler’, Whitham Road, died on 1 December 1899, aged 69.  He was buried in the General Cemetery.

After his death, George Henry was a table knife manufacturer in Button Lane, with a residence in Broomspring Lane.  In 1903, the local newspaper reported a fire at G. H. Cowen’s, which occurred in a ‘crowded part’ of Button Lane.  The workshops consisted of ‘several rather small rooms’, which were stuffed with valuable cases of carvers hafted in xylonite and ivory (Sheffield Daily Telegraph, 12 June 1903).   By 1916, he was located in Rockingham Street, where he advertised for table knife cutlers and grinders for carvers.  George Henry sailed to New York in 1916, 1918, and 1922.  He moved to Grimsby to work as an importer.  He died on 14 May 1922 at Grimsby, leaving £745.   His brother, James Roger, of the Plough Inn, Upton-on-Severn, died on 17 May 1923.