The firm of Manchester-born John Bednal (1829-1907) was founded in about 1860 and based in Change Alley.  It sold awl blades and shoe knives (Bednal was apparently the son of a shoe maker).  James Wilton of Liverpool was involved until 1864.  By the 1870s, John Bednal & Co, hardware merchant, was in West Street Lane (where the owner employed a boy and a girl).  Bednal retired in 1892.  A prominent Nonconformist, Bednal died at his home at Kenwood Park Road on 6 November 1907, aged 79, leaving £14,842.  His nephew was W. A. Hydes (see Sharrard, Mosby).  

In the mid-1890s, Bednal’s and the name of another local grindery (shoemakers’ materials) business, S. Thornhill & Sons, had been merged as Thornhill, Bednal & Co (Tweedale, Directory of Sheffield Tool Manufacturers, 2020).  It sold shoe and curriers’ knives at Crispin Works, Sycamore Street.  The owner was Herbert John Marsden (1853-1932), who had been born at Hasland.   He sold the business in 1919.  Horace Sydney Wall and Howard J. Haslam were the next partners of Thornhill, Bednal, which in 1922 became ‘Ltd’ with £2,000 capital.  Wall tried to break into the market for stainless cutlery, but the firm disappeared after the early 1920s.  The trade mark was a picture of two crossed flags and ‘CRIS’, with the picture of a pin.  The name Thornhill, Bednal & Co was struck off the register in 1953.