Thomas Staniforth (c.1767-1828) was a pen and pocket knife cutler.  His early life has not been traced, but he may have been the Thomas Staniforth listed in 1797 at Smithfield as a manufacturer of pen and pocket knives, and also ‘wood and brass pocket stampt knives’.  At about this time, Thomas Staniforth formed a cutlery partnership with William Bowman.  The latter is easy to identify, as the apprenticeship rolls of the Company of Cutlers only list one William Bowman: he was a pawnbroker at Church Street, who purchased his Freedom as a knife maker in 1800.  The partners dissolved their arrangement in 1800.

Thomas Staniforth was listed as a pen and pocket knife maker at Smithfield in 1811 and at Scotland Street between 1816 and 1822.  In 1825 and 1828, Thomas Staniforth (presumably the same cutler) was listed in directories as a maker of pen, pocket, and life knives, and as a ‘commission agent for all kinds of Sheffield goods’, at 19 Radford Street.  His trade mark was ‘PINION’.  The reference to ‘life knives’ was apparently a reference to another mark, ‘LIFE’, which was acquired later by George Latham, who married Staniforth’s daughter, Emma.  Thomas Staniforth, cutler, Radford Street, died on 8 June 1828, aged 61, and was buried in St Peter and St Paul churchyard.  Unusually, probate was not granted until 1888.  George Edward Latham, George’s son, was the administrator.  Thomas Staniforth’s effects were valued at only £5.