Calow, Dodworth & Co was listed in a Sheffield directory in 1797 as a table knife manufacturer at Barley Field.  The trade mark was ‘CALOW DODWORTH TONI’.  Charles Calow was likely to have been a partner.  The apprenticeship  records of the Company of Cutlers – compiled by Leader (1905-06)¹ – contained details of a Charles Calow.  He was the son of John, a cutler, and was trained by Christopher Oates (possibly at Hollis Croft).  Charles was granted his Freedom in 1795.  A reported insolvency in The London Gazette, 3 June 1755, of John Calow, cutler, may also be relevant.

Charles Calow was next listed as a partner in Calow, Skinner & Co (alongside Samuel Skinner, and Richard Walton).   Their association was brief.  Calow left in 1801; the others in 1805.  Four years later, Calow was involved in another partnership dissolution, with Henry Birch and John Bramwell.  They had been factors and table knife manufacturers.  Eventually, by 1821 Charles Calow was a table knife manufacturer at Garden Street, where he was listed until the 1820s.  He had married Ann Worstenholm in 1777 and apparently had a son named Charles (baptised 1784), though whether he joined the business is unknown.  Ann died on 15 November 1824 (aged 68) at Garden Street.  Charles died on 19 December 1831, aged 77.  His obituary noted that he had formerly been in business as a cutler at Garden Street (Sheffield Independent, 24 December 1831).  The remains of Charles and his wife were interred at St Peter & St Paul churchyard, The burial register described him as a ‘gentleman’.

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