An excellent  13 inch (33 cm) heavy Joseph Haywood & Co. Sheffield bowie folding knife made between 1864 and 1882

7.87 inch (20 cm) folding clip-point blade, two-piece folding straight cross guard of German silver and steel bolsters.

Checkered horn /wood grip scales held by five steel rivets. Spine with lockback blade release. Oval German silver push-button blade release. Contained in original form-fitted brown leather scabbard with nickel silver mounts

Condition: Very Good. Blade clean with a couple of staining spots,  unsharpened with original edge. Hilt with no wear. Scabbard with normal wear and scuff according age and types, Hinge tight. Opens and closes properly with no wobble in the locked open position. The locking pin a little bit loose

Joseph Haywood was born in Sheffield on 14 February 1823, the son of Joseph, a merchant, and his wife, Sarah.  Joseph Haywood Jun. was apprenticed to Robert Sorby & Co, merchant and edge tool manufacturer, Carver Street.  In the Census (1841), he was enumerated as a merchant’s clerk living in Eyre Street with Sarah Haywood (his widowed mother).  Joseph’s uncle was George Willis Hinchliffe.  Aged 21, Joseph became the ‘successor’ to Hinchliffe.  The latter’s business had become insolvent by 1850, but it appears that Haywood’s mother had acquired the assets and the mark.  Certainly, Haywood owned the name ‘Geo. W. Hinchliffe’. Haywood was first listed in a directory in 1845 as a merchant and steel, file, edge-tool, saw, and cutlery manufacturer in Victoria Street.  The business moved to Livingstone Works, Holly Street, and then to Garden Street, from where a silver mark was registered in 1880.  The workshops were soon moved to Glamorgan Works, Little Pond Street.  Haywood traded as a ‘general merchant’ in cutlery, partly through a London office at No. 56 Holborn Viaduct.  Pocket, sportsman’s, and budding knives were staple lines, though the firm also made table cutlery and plated dessert ware.  It registered another silver mark in Sheffield in 1894.  Haywood’s corporate mark (besides ‘HINCHLIFFE’) was a kettle, which had been granted in 1860.  Haywood was once described as ‘a successful manufacturer and splendid man of business.  The qualities which make up the latter he largely inherited from his mother, who in his early career was in the habit of attending to the works while he was travelling for orders’ (Sheffield Independent, 2 June 1888).  By 1881, according to the Census, he employed 165 workers (101 men, 41 women, and 23 boys).  Joseph Haywood, Oakholme Road, died on 31 May 1888, aged 65.  He was interred in the General Cemetery, leaving £26,843. Joseph’s son, Arthur Haywood (1855-1936), took over the business.  Within only two years he was bankrupt.  At a hearing at Preston bankruptcy court, he denied living beyond his means by spending money on a party trip to the Lake District and on champagne and wines, ‘believing he had a considerable interest under his father’s will’ (Sheffield Independent, 22 March 1890).  He was living on his own means by the 1890s and had retired completely.  In 1902, the firm’s marks, goodwill, and stock of electro-plate and premium sportsman’s knives were offered for sale (Sheffield Daily Telegraph, 18, 19 March 1902).  The goodwill and marks of the business at Glamorgan Works, Pond Street, were sold for £660.  The purchasers were Needham, Veall & Tyzack and Thomas Turner & Co, who purchased them co-jointly.  The agreement was that Turner’s would continue the pocket-knife department; Needham, Veall would carry on the table, razor, scissors, and electro-plate department.  Both firms would have the right to strike the ‘kettle’ on their respective goods.  In the Census (1911), Arthur was living in Crookes as a ‘late cutlery manufacturer: now out of’.  He died in Barlow Moor Road, Crookes, on 9 October 1936.  He left £98 to his widow, Alberta