Joseph Hunter (6 February 1783 – 9 May 1861) was a Unitarian Minister, antiquarian, and deputy keeper of public records now best known for his publications Hallamshire. The History and Topography of the Parish of Sheffield in the County of York, the two-volume South Yorkshire (a history of the Deanery of Doncaster), still considered among the best works written on the history of Sheffield and South Yorkshire,[1] and his 1852 pamphlet on Robin Hood in which he argued that a servant of this name at the court of Edward II was identical with the famous outlaw. His name was adopted by the Hunter Archaeological Society.Hunter was born in Sheffield on 6 February 1783 to cutler Michael Hunter (1759–1831) and Elizabeth Girdler (1761–1787)[2] in a house on the north side of New Church Street (a site now occupied by the Town Hall). Following the death of his mother in 1787 he was placed under the guardianship of Joseph Evans, a minister at Upper Chapel.[2] He went to school in Attercliffe and subsequently served an apprenticeship as a cutler, obtaining his freedom of the Cutler's Company in September 1804.[3] However, in 1805 he left Sheffield to study theology at Manchester College in York Less