Mark Willis (1842-1915) was born at Melton Mowbray, the son William Willis, a tailor, and his wife Ann.  Aged thirteen, he came to Sheffield to learn silversmithing at W. W. Harrison, which was then in Pepper Alley.  He became manager.  After a brief spell at Birmingham, he applied for a job at Hutton’s, but he considered the pay so poor that he decided to go-it-alone.  Apparently, his brother (a steel maker) advised against doing so, but with the help of Joshua Maxfield he started a workshop at Exchange Gateway.  In 1875, he registered a silver mark from Exchange Works, Fargate.  In the early 1880s, he moved to Tudor Place, where in 1881 he employed five men and four boys.  His residence was Poplar Villa, Oakdale Road.  In about 1889, he moved his silver and electro-plate business to Exchange Works, Rockingham Street.

Mark Willis took into partnership J. C. Horrabin (a traveller), and later his son, William Willis, joined.  The firm was restyled Mark Willis & Son.  The Century’s Progress (1893) described a three-storey warehouse and factory that apparently employed sixty hands.  Mark Willis manufactured tea and coffee sets and all types of silver and electro-plate holloware.  His firm became a private limited company in 1904, with a capital of £20,000.  Mark Willis, his son William, and J. W. Horrabin were the shareholders.  Mark Willis, Crescent Road, died on 10 November 1915, aged 73.  After a service in Abbeydale Congregational Church, he was buried at Ecclesall.  He had been chairman of Sheffield Blind Institution & School (Sheffield Daily Telegraph, 12 April 1915).  He left £9,408.   The firm had apparently ceased trading by 1919.  J. W. Horrabin launched Willis & Horrabin, with Mark Willis’s nephew, Alfred.