Benjamin Vickers was baptised at St Peter’s parish church on 5 December 1754.  He was the son of John Vickers, a baker and later miller, and his wife, Mary Hall.  Benjamin was apprenticed to Matthew Thomas, a scissors maker, and was granted his Freedom in 1776.  In 1787, he was listed as a ‘fine scissor’ manufacturer in Spring Street, using a trade mark composed of his initials.  Working in the same street was John Linley who married Benjamin’s sister.  This apparently led Benjamin and Linley to form a partnership as silver platers.  Vickers became Master Cutler in 1799 (two years after Linley).  He remained a manufacturer of fine scissors in Spring Street.  However, by 1816 Benjamin Vickers was a partner with William Anderson in Bishop, Carr & Co, merchants, factors, and table knife manufacturers.  Whether this was the Benjamin is unconfirmed, though it is known that the partnership ended in that year.  Benjamin Vickers’ death date is also unconfirmed, but an individual of that name was buried at St James’s Church on 31 July 1823, aged 67.  Benjamin Vickers died unmarried, but the descendants of his brother, John (a miller in Millsands), launched the great Vickers steel making combine in the nineteenth century.