James Sedgwick (1817-1891) was born at Shiregreen (Ecclesfield).   According to Ancestry.co.uk (Longbottom family tree), he was the son of John Sedgwick (1795-1878) and his wife, Ann née Gregory (1793-1854).  James’s father was a haft and scale presser.   In 1838, James married Mary Ann Bates and three years later they were living with their son, John, in Granville Street.   James was a ‘cutler’.   In the directory (1849), he was a spring knife manufacturer in Trafalgar Street, with a residence in Carver Street (where he shared a house for a time with his parents).   Directory listings for James are rare after that date, but according to the Census he continued as a spring-knife cutler.  He was an active trade unionist and chaired meetings of spring-knife cutlers to campaign for better wages (Sheffield Independent, 19 January 1850).   

Sedgwick’s best pocket-knives had milled liners and pearl scales.  In the Census (1871), he was a ‘surgical cutler’ living in Monmouth Street.   However, during the 1870s Sedgwick apparently abandoned cutlery manufacture and became a publican at the North Pole Inn, Sussex Street.  He died on 26 December 1891, aged 74, leaving £434.   He was buried in the General Cemetery (the grave also contains the remains of his wife, Mary Ann, who died in 1902, aged 82).