Advertisement from 1845 Directory. Image courtesy of Geoff Tweedale.
John Jones (c.1799-1856) was born in London. In 1839, when he was based in Westfield Terrace, Sheffield, he patented an ‘improved’ table knife. He described it as ‘decidedly the greatest improvement which for upwards of three centuries has been made in this article’. Because dinner dishes were concave and the cutting edge of the traditional blade was straight, Jones reasoned that this meant that only the point of the blade was in contact with the meat. His solution was to change the shape of the blade by lowering the cutting edge, so that more of the blade was in contact with the meat. Jones partnered Charles Hall in Hall, Jones & Co, Duke Street, but this ended in 1841.
In the early 1840s, he puffed his invention in the national press and also began offering blades ‘in rough, ready shaped for the grinder’, marked with the purchaser’s name or the names of customers. In 1842, Jones established a Patent Table Knife Office in 92 Carver Street, from where he advertised a ‘Mariner’s Safety Razor’, by which a ‘trembling hand may be made steady’ (Sheffield Independent, 31 December 1842). He also advertised for a partner with capital or shareholders to back his inventions. By 1845, Jones & Co had an arrangement with William Broadhurst, who was also in 27 Westfield Terrace and sold Jones’s patented knife. In 1851, Jones displayed his patented knives at the Great Exhibition, alongside his ‘rust preventive composition’, which aimed to keep steel bright for nearly a week. In the following year, he patented an ‘improvement’ for the handles of knives and razors. He also made gutta-percha galoshes for sheep to prevent foot rot.
On 29 July 1856, however, Jones was found hanging in the washhouse of his dwelling in 33 Westfield Terrace. According to his wife, Mary Ann, and his friends, he had apparently become depressed through ‘over-study’ and the failure of his new system of motive power that Jones hoped would supersede steam engines. The inquest recorded a verdict of ‘temporary insanity’. He was buried in the General Cemetery. His son was George Rose Jones (c.1833-1902), who became a shareholder in Ibbotson Bros and then partnered the steel maker William Edgar Allen.