Edwin John Makin (1833-1912) was the son of William Makin, a steel manufacturer and merchant in Attercliffe, and his wife Mary.  Edwin was apprenticed into the steel trade.  His father died on 8 January 1865, aged 68, at his residence Clifton House, Attercliffe.  He left under £7,000.  Possibly a bequest from his father encouraged Makin to launch his own business.  In about 1865, he acquired the silver and electro-plate firm of George Hawksley & Co at Charlotte Street Works.  His partner was Henry Storr, who was to be a regular attender at Sheffield’s bankruptcy courts in the 1860s.  Makin and Storr dissolved their arrangement in 1866.  Storr was later buried in a pauper’s grave in the General Cemetery in 1870, aged 55.  

Meanwhile, Edwin continued alone.  He registered a silver mark in Sheffield in 1867 and advertised in The Mercantile Navy List and Maritime Directory (London, 1867).   The trade mark was a picture of an anchor enclosed by his initials and those of G H & Co.  His venture was short-lived.  In a Sheffield directory (1868), he was listed as traveller, with no mention of his firm.  In the Census (1871), he was enumerated as a slate merchant (one of his father’s executors had been Robert White, a slate merchant and builder at Lady’s Bridge).  Makin was bankrupt in 1872, but apparently continued to trade as a slate merchant until he retired.  He died at Dykes Hall Road on 8 March 1912, aged 79.  His burial was at Darnall Cemetery.