John Barber Hobson (1828-1909) was the son of Edward Hobson and his wife, Hannah.  He was the younger brother of Henry Hobson.  Apparently, John and Henry operated Hobson Bros.  When that partnership was dissolved in 1852, John appears to have succeeded to his father’s hardware dealership.  Edward was based at 68 Snig Hill; John at 67 – though with street re-numbering the warehouse/office may have been identical.  John B. Hobson was listed in 1854 as a merchant and general dealer in cutlery, joiners’ and edge tools, saws, files, Bowie, dirk, and lock knives.  Interestingly, the 1854 directory has a category for Bowie knives and John was the only name listed.  The 1861 directory carried a brief advertisement for him.  A fine folding Bowie knife stamped ‘J.B. Hobson’ and acid-etched ‘Anglo-Saxon Knife’ is illustrated in Flayderman (2004)¹.  Snig Hill remained Hobson’s address until the 1860s.  By 1876, he was located at 3 King Street and was last listed as a cutlery dealer in 1907.  He lived at 244 Fulwood Road (the building was until 2018 occupied by the NatWest Broomhill branch) and died on 31 March 1909, leaving £51,374.

^1. Flayderman, Norm, The Bowie Knife: Unsheathing an American Legend (Woonsocket, RI, 2004)