John Eadon Reaney was born in Sheffield in 1841, the son of John Reaney (a manager in an edge tool manufactory, who was from Dronfield) and his wife, Mary Ann.  Apparently, John E. Reaney was sent to Leicester as an ironmonger’s assistant, before returning to Sheffield to become a merchant/cutlery manufacturer at Argyle Works, Hollis Croft.  In the early 1870s, he was insolvent; though in the Census (1881) he was a cutlery manufacturer employing sixty men.  But Reaney’s Hollis Croft business was bankrupt in that year, with debts of £3,500.  Reaney left for London and became a metal agent, living in Hornsey.  John Eadon Reaney, of Rivelin, Sutton Road, Muswell Hill, London, died at St Leonard’s-on-Sea on 22 May 1905.  He left £653 to his son, John Eadon Reaney (d. 1930).