This enterprise began in about 1847 as Pearson & Winks, with Samuel Pearson and Benjamin Winks (1813-1885) as partners.  They manufactured razors, including a ‘diamond edge’ razor, which was advertised in The Sheffield Independent, 3 July 1847, and sold at Wallis’s ironmongers in High Street.  Pearson & Winks was also a general merchant and dealer in Eldon Street.  Benjamin Winks was apparently the son of Joseph Winks, a razor smith, Little Pond Street, who died on 2 September 1846, aged 55.  (Joseph, it appears, was the son of Joseph Winks, dyer, and was granted his Freedom as a razor smith in 1804.)  Pearson & Winks was dissolved in 1850, with Pearson bankrupt by 1851.  Winks continued alone from his address in Earl Street, advertising razors and table knives.  He displayed at the Great Exhibition (1851), where he received an Honourable Mention.  According to the Census in that year, he ‘partly’ employed ten to fifteen men. 

By 1856, the business was styled Benjamin Winks & Sons, Eyre Street/Earl Street.  His sons were apparently Benjamin Jun. and Charles.  The latter died from consumption, aged 28, on 29 August 1863 and was buried in the General Cemetery.  The Benjamins (father and son) then operated the enterprise but became insolvent in 1869.  In 1871, the directory listing was Benjamin Winks & Sons (William Hardy), merchants and manufacturers of cutlery and electro-plate, Leopold Works, with a house in Eyre Street.  William Hardy, who lived on Abbeydale and London Road, married into the Winks’ family and was variously described over the next decade as a razor manufacturer, agent, and manager.  By 1881, he was a cocoa house manager, and Winks’ apparently had ceased trading.  Winks was living with Hardy’s family.  Benjamin Winks, ‘cutler’, Coffee House, Pond Street, died on 9 January 1885, aged 71.  He was buried in the General Cemetery.  His wife and several members of his family were buried in the grave.