(Tom) Ernest Brownhill (1886-1956) was born at Sheffield, the son of Tom Brownhill (a saw maker) and his wife, Aleathea. By 1911, Ernest was also employed as a saw maker. By 1919, he had started his own business as a saw manufacturer (specialising in band saws), and also dealt in steel, files, and tools. He was based at Westbrook Works, Button Lane. In the Sheffield directory (1925), Brownhill’s was listed as a limited company, which manufactured steel strip. Ernest was managing director. It seems, however, that the enterprise was already in financial straits.  A receiver of a debenture holder had ordered the sale of the motors, fly presses, and office equipment (Sheffield Daily Telegraph, 21 October 1924). Ernest also had personal troubles. He had parted from his wife and sued her for the return of certain furniture. He claimed that she had knocked him out by hitting him over the head with a brass stair rod (Sheffield Daily Telegraph, 14 May 1927).  In the following year, he was concussed again: this time after a fall in Pinstone Street, which ended with treatment in the Royal Hospital (Sheffield Daily Telegraph, 12 March 1928). 

In 1929, Ernest Brownhill was the Glasgow agent for the Sheffield cutlery manufacturer Danks & Leggett. He was fined £15 by Sheffield magistrates for three charges of selling goods without remitting the payments (Sheffield Daily Telegraph, 10 May 1929).  A decade later, Brownhill was a scrap agent in Sheffield, living at Winter Street. He continued to have brushes with the authorities. In 1939, he was fined £10 for stealing planes and other tools (Sheffield Daily Telegraph, 9 May 1939).  The Register of that year recorded that he was a steel works clerk. During the war, he was again in court in Sheffield. On this occasion, though, he was found not guilty of conspiracy in connection with the sale of scrap razor blades, which had been ‘titivated up’ (Newcastle Evening Chronicle, 12 January 1942). His later career is unknown.