See: http://fds.oup.com/www.oup.co.uk/pdf/0-19-929971-4.pdf

Strelley Pegge of Beauchief Hall loaned Boulsover the money to start a new business making decorative items from this new material which came to be known as Sheffield Plate. Boulsover set up a partnership with Joseph Wilson to make buttons, buckles, spurs and small boxes out of Sheffield Plate. The business was very successful and the process was soon copied by several other maunufacturers, including Matthew Boulton in Birmingham.

Joseph Wilson eventually left the partnership and set up on his own. Wilson added snuff making to his business. This snuff making business was the basis of the Wilson family's prosperity. The water powered snuff mill was operated in Sharrow, on the River Porter until recently.

Joseph Wilson (1723-1796) moved into the saw business in the late 1760s. Wilson operated a mill on the river Don, processing steel for a very large number of local users. But his business interests were diverse. A wheel on the river Porter was also used to grind snuff on an extensive scale, and Wilson dealt in plated silver goods as well as steel tools. Indeed, Wilson was a merchant quite as much as he was an industrialist. As the exporter of locally made wares, he made crucible steel part of an expanding basket of Sheffield goods that circulated through the Atlantic world.

From: http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/A2A/records.aspx?cat=199-ywd&cid...

Conveyance (lease missing) YWD 1898/2-3 1797, 1798

Contents: Thomas and William Wilson of Sharrow, Sheffield Mills, snuff manufacturers, to Joseph Wilson of the same. Two thirds (their shares) of the allotment on Sharrow Moor, Sheffield purchased from Mark Skelton, and of the capital messuage called Westbrook which the three have erected on it at their own expense, for £489.17.2. 27 May, 1797. Conveyance by Joseph Wilson to Thomas Watson of Sheffield, silver plater, of the same premises, in trust to uses, for the benefit of Joseph Wilson. 1 January, 1798