George Ward was born in Eckington, Derbyshire, in about 1815.  He was possibly the brother of Jeremiah Ward, who had been born about three years earlier in nearby Beighton.  By 1841, they were spring-knife cutlers in Charles Street.  By 1851, they and their families occupied adjacent houses at 169 and 171 Eyre Street.   Jeremiah employed a dozen men; George, who a maker of fine pen and pocket knives (and a dealer in cutlery), employed ten men and four boys.  Jeremiah was not listed thereafter, but George remained in business.   In 1861, he employed 12 men and ten boys and was also helped by his twenty-four year-old son, George.  In the 1860s, the firm advertised in Sheffield trade directories.  The trade mark was ‘Y NOT’ (used in 1774 by Joseph Wilson, pen knife cutler, Castlefold).   Besides pen knives, Ward was also a maker of Bowie knives.   

George Ward Jun., ‘cutlery manufacturer’, 171 Eyre Street, died on 10 March 1870.  He was only 33.   The elder George remained in business in Eyre Street, employing 13 men and a boy in 1871.  By 1876, he was listed in a directory as an ironmonger in Mansfield (‘Y NOT’ had meanwhile passed to his ‘successor’ George Renton.   By the 1880s, Ward had retired.  George Ward, South View Road, Sheffield, died on 11 May 1891, aged 76, and was buried alongside his wife, Elizabeth, and his son in an unconsecrated grave in the General Cemetery.  He left £181.