This cutler registered a silver mark at the Sheffield Assay Office in 1776 as a plate worker.  He was based in Silver Street, where he was listed as a ‘cutler’ in the 1787 directory.  Leader (1905-6)¹ found some brief family details.  Watkinson became Master Cutler in 1787 and was a prominent manufacturer of his day.  However, he would be largely forgotten in cutlery history, apart from his alleged introduction of ‘thirteen’s’.  This meant thirteen knives to the dozen, which was demanded by some manufacturers as a way of allowing for ‘wasters’ or simply enforcing a discount.  It was deeply unpopular with working cutlers and Watkinson became the subject of a song, ‘Watkinson and His Thirteens’, which was written by the Sheffield satirist Joseph Mather (1862)².  Watkinson was tarred as a ‘greedy, blood-sucking, bone-scraping wolf’, which ‘keeps picking the bones of the poor as he walks’.  Apparently, Watkinson was driven from a theatre by the abuse and the scandal broke him.  He died in about 1791.  Contrary evidence suggests that he may have been a good employer.

^1. Leader, R E, History of the Company of Cutlers in Hallamshire in the County of York (Sheffield, 1905-6) 

^2. Mather, Joseph, The Songs of Joseph Mather (Sheffield, 1862)