Thomas Makin (1781-1872) may have the son of John, a fork maker, and his wife Sarah.  Thomas was apparently apprenticed to John Sanderson (a fork maker at Grenoside) in 1795.  The family details are difficult to verify, but Thomas may have been the brother (or half-brother) of James Makin (Master Cutler in 1803) and Joseph Makin.  Thomas was granted his Freedom in 1805.  A trade advertisement gave the foundation date of Thomas Makin & Son as 1771.  Thomas’s first venture as a fork maker was probably in Makin, Goodlad & Mellor.  This partnership, alongside Luke Goodlad and George Mellor, was dissolved in 1813.  

By 1821, Thomas partnered Charles Sanderson at the top of Hollis Croft.  Their enterprise, Makin & Sanderson, manufactured shoe, butchers’, and cooks’ knives.  In 1831, it was terminated.  Thomas then took his son, Henry (1808-1844), into partnership.  In the directory (1837), Thomas Makin & Son was listed as a shoe, cook, and butcher knife, steel, fork, and file manufacturer at Carr Lane.  In 1842, the partnership between Thomas and Henry Makin was dissolved.  In the following year, Thomas was bankrupt.  Henry died in 1844, aged 36, and was buried at St George’s church, Portobello.

The firm was resurrected by Thomas’s other son, James Edward Makin (1818-1884).   Thomas Makin & Son advertised in Slater’s National and Commercial Directory of Ireland (London & Manchester, 1846).  The business was listed as a manufacturer of steel, files, forks, calico web, shoe and butchers’ knives, and whip hooks and mounts.  Gradually, Makin & Son began to specialise in steel and tools.  By the end of the 1860s, it occupied Castle Works in Edward Street/Scotland Street, where it manufactured (or factored) blister and cast steel, besides best refined cast steel files, rasps, and also butchers’ knives.  The firm may have been linked with other Makin companies, such as the steelmakers William Makin & Sons (see Edwin J.  Makin) in Attercliffe.   By the end of the 1870s, Thomas Makin had switched to steel products, though it still advertised table and pocket cutlery and scissors (using the ‘FORGET ME NOT’ mark, later acquired by J. H. Potter).   Makin also took over George Deakin & Co.  

Thomas Makin died on 10 March 1890, aged 90.  According to Leader (1876)¹:

Mr Makin, better known as ‘Makin in the Brick-hole’ (Carr Lane), died on the 10th of March in the present year [1872], in his 91st year, having become a recipient of the pensions of the Iron and Hardware Charity, as was also his partner, Mr [Charles] Sanderson.  He was one of the Makins of the Pickle, and I have heard him say that he believed he was the only one living in the town or neighbourhood who heard John Wesley preach on his last visit to Sheffield in 1788.  

Leader (1905-06)² later elaborated that the name ‘brick-hole’ signified the waste clay land between Broad Lane and Trippet Lane.

James Edward Makin, Brookhill, died on 18 October 1884, aged 66, and was buried in Ecclesall churchyard.  He left £2,974.  Thomas Makin & Son continued in New Edward Street, with James Edward Makin’s sons, Charles Edward Makin and Frederick Makin, as partners in 1889.  It had not quite abandoned cutlery, even though its key products were steel and files.   In 1889, pocket knives, razors, and scissors were listed among the firm’s products.  Frederick withdrew in 1893, leaving Charles Edward Makin as the final partner.  The latter, of Rockville, Spring Road, died on 30 August 1897, aged 49, and was buried in Fulwood.  He left £2,142.  The firm ceased business in about 1908.   

^1. Leader, Robert E, Reminiscences of Old Sheffield (Sheffield, 2nd edn 1876)
^2. Leader, R E, History of the Company of Cutlers in Hallamshire in the County of York (Sheffield, 1905-6)