Rawson's was the oldest brewing company in Sheffield. It opened in 1758. Until then most pubs and beer houses had made their own supplies.
Always innovators, they were one of the first breweries to adopt the tied house system and the first brewery outside London to take up the brewing of Porter.
Samuel Plimsoll, famous for the Plimsoll Line on ships, worked as a clerk at the brewery.
Brewing stopped on 12th December 1940 when the brewery was destroyed in an air raid. The tied houses were all taken over by Gilmour's, and Sheffield Hallam University now stands on the site.