The Cadmans were an old Derbyshire family from Eckington, a hamlet several miles south east of Sheffield. The Cadmans were farmers, but in the eighteenth century the family gravitated to the Sheffield cutlery and edge tool industry. George Cadman (1774-1839) was a pen and pocket knife cutler, who was mainly based at Rockingham Street. However, directory entries before the 1820s refer to a cutler of that name at Westfield Lane (1797), Coalpit Lane (1811), and Norfolk Street (1816). He died at Rockingham Street on 10 January 1839, aged 64. ‘He was a singularly good and humane man, and died sincerely regretted by a numerous circle of friends’ (Sheffield Independent, 12 January 1839). He was buried at St Paul’s, Sheffield.