Luke Furniss (1818-1866) was baptised at Fishlake, near Doncaster (though one of his Census returns stated Masbrough as his birthplace).   His parents were Joseph and Sarah Furnist.  Luke first appeared in a Sheffield directory in 1845, when he was a spring knife manufacturer at Snow Hill and Duke Street.  He lived in the Park district for the rest of his life.  Besides making pen and pocket knives, Luke’s main pastime was ‘pedestrianism’ – or running in various competitions.   For example, in one race at Hyde Park in Sheffield he agreed:

to run in regular Lancashire clogs one mile, while his opponent, William Gibbons, did the same distance in racing shoes.  They went off at the first signal, Cloggy taking a short lead, but ‘Luke the Labourer’, who is a pen knife cutler by trade, pushed on with his wooden ‘understandings’ till he reached the hotel the second time round, when he passed his opponent like a dart, and on ascending the hill the third time, he passed his antagonist, who dropped the contest, leaving Luke to win as he pleased (The Sun, London, 26 June 1847).

Luke Furniss died at High Street, Park, on 8 December 1866, aged 48.  His burial was at Burngreave Cemetery.