Advertisements stated that Wilson’s was founded in 1750 and was: ‘THE OLDEST AND FOREMOST FIRM IN THE WORLD specializing in the Manufacture of Butchers’ and Provision Dealers’ Cutlery’.  Apparently, it started at Ranmoor or Hallam, and then moved to Cross Smithfield in about 1750.  The founder was Thomas Wilson.  He may have been the cutler apprenticed to Joseph Wilson (Hallam) and granted his Freedom in 1766.  According to Leader (1876), Thomas Wilson:

first saw the possibility of dispensing with factors and of opening up connections of his own without the intervention of the middle-man.  Determining to offer his knives – shoemakers’ and butchers’ – for sale himself, he packed up his goods and took them on his back into Lancashire.  Whenever he sold any knives, he told the purchasers he should come again at a fixed period of time, and if the article did not suit he would return with the money.  On his next journey he had no complaints, but so much greater demand that some of the retail shops would have purchased the whole of his stock, but he kept to his promise to the others.  He readily sold all he had taken, and soon returned home to manufacture more goods ...

Thomas Wilson, Sycamore Street, died on 5 July 1808.  His age was cited as 63, though one obituary stated 76 (York Herald, 16 July 1808).  He was described in obituaries as a ‘tradesman of unsullied integrity ... and the distressed did not apply to him in vain’ (Iris, 12 July 1808).  He was buried at the parish church, leaving an estate valued at £2,000.  He was succeeded by his son, John (bapt.1772-1849), who consolidated the firm’s reputation and its trade mark.  This was four peppercorns and a diamond, which had been granted in 1766, and was ‘as well known to the town as the old church’ (Sheffield Times, 7 April 1849).  In the Wilson marking, the ‘J’ looks like an ‘I’, leading to the firm occasionally being referred to as I. Wilson.  The mark was often counterfeited.  In 1839, the firm took up two pages in Robson’s Birmingham & Sheffield Directory to warn customers of the fraudulent use of its mark.  One of the featured counterfeiters was Southern & Richardson.  The Wilson business remained in Sycamore Street and advertised as a knife maker and steel manufacturer.  In the 1820s, John Wilson had an interest in Wilson, Hawksworth.  He leased Loxley Glass Tilt and Beeley Wood Works for the forging of blades.  Wilson’s butchers’, skinning, farriers’, flaying and shoe knives were invariably hand-forged.  In the nineteenth century, Wilson’s plain and utilitarian blades of good quality sold at a premium on the American frontier.  According to one American writer: ‘Though it lacks the romance and glory associated with frontier Bowies, dirks and push daggers, the I. Wilson butcher knife made a major contribution to the settling of this country’ (Dick, 1990).  Later, Wilson’s also made American-style ‘Green River’ hunting knives.

John Wilson lived at Oakholme, Endcliffe Vale, and later in life described himself as a merchant and coal owner.  He died on 3 March 1849, aged 77.  The Sheffield Independent described how he had ‘left behind him a name around which the most pleasing fragrance had long been gathering.  Amiable and kind in all his domestic relations, princely in his benevolence, attractively humble in his Christian deportment, he passed through life loved by all and died in the faith and hope of the Gospel’.  His remains lie in Ecclesall churchyard.  In 1845, his eldest daughter, Mary Crossley Wilson, had married Frederick Thorpe Mappin.

The firm won a Prize Medal at the Great Exhibition of 1851, when its reputation was at its height.  In 1861, it employed 33 men and boys.  John Wilson had four sons – John, William, Samuel and Thomas – with the latter as partner between 1851 and 1897.  Under Thomas’s ownership, the business expanded, and the workforce doubled to about seventy workers.  It provided a comfortable life at Oakholme, where Thomas was attended by three servants and a coachman.  He never married and so eventually recruited a non-family manager to run the business.  This was Edward Ridgway, who after about 1850 was the cashier and manager at Wilson’s.  By 1890, Edward (and his son, Edward Frederic) were Thomas Wilson’s partners.  Edward retired in 1890 and died on 15 October 1893, aged 73, and was buried in unconsecrated ground in the General Cemetery.  He left £26,175.  When Thomas Wilson retired in 1898, Edward Frederic Ridgway (1850-1933) took over the management and in 1903 bought the business.

Thomas Wilson died at Oakholme, Clarkehouse Road, on 22 May 1905, aged 73, and was buried in Ecclesall.  His will was proved at £174,548, with bequests to local charities and Sheffield University.  He was the last surviving son of John Wilson, and (according to obituarists) had no particular hobby, apart from a love of flowers.  Edward Frederic remained the director until after the First World War.  In 1924, John Wilson (Sheffield) Ltd was formed with £30,000 capital.  Edward F. Ridgway, West Mount, Glossop Road, died on 14 January 1933 and was buried in Fulwood.  He left £40,171.  In that year, Joseph Brittlebank, who had joined the firm in 1877 as a clerk, became chairman.  He died on 1 May 1948, aged 85, leaving £17,817.  The Wilson trade mark and name were then acquired by Joseph Elliot, who continued to advertise Wilson’s hand-forged butchers’ knives.