John Paas was born in 1790, in Holborn, London. Holborn, being adjacent to Fleet Street and therefore adjacent to the heart of the printing industry in London, was popular among bookbinders, printers, engravers, and many people involved in the world of book production. The Paas family themselves represented the immigrant success story of 18th-century London. John's father, Cornelius, had arrived in Holborn around 1765 from Germany. By 1783, apprenticeship records show Cornelius working as a master jeweller, but by 1793 he had transitioned fully into engraving and held some important contracts engraving the plates for bank notes. By the time of Cornelius' death in 1806, he would hold the title of "Engraver to His Majesty", there are several surviving fine pieces of silverware and copperplate portraits engraved by him.

The family workshop at 33 High Holborn became young John's playground and classroom. Here, surrounded by the tools of the engraving trade, John must have absorbed the skills that would define his adult life. The Paas family was part of a network of related craftsmen; Cornelius was likely related, possibly a brother, to Abraham Paas, another engraver who operated in Holborn from the 1780s until his death in 1807.

In 1805, John secured an apprenticeship with George Blake King, a "Copperplate engraver & printer" based in Fleet Street. This appointment represented not just professional training but also John's entry into the broader world of London's printing and publishing trade, which was experiencing unprecedented growth during the industrial revolution, as previously local companies were able to expand to selling their products to the whole country - something John's own company would later do.

Tragedy struck the Paas household in 1806 when Cornelius died at the age of 65, leaving behind his royal appointment, his established business, and a sixteen-year-old son not yet ready to assume the responsibilities of his father's business. At least some of the family's furniture and effects were auctioned off within weeks of Cornelius's death. The shop and family home at 33 High Holborn was sold two years later.

This early loss of his father and the family business must have been devastating for young John, but it also demonstrated the precarious nature of business life in early 19th-century London.

Apprentiships lasted for 7 years, so John would have finished his apprentiship in 1812. It is not recorded when he started his own business, but the first definite mention of "Paas & Co" at 26 High Holborn is in 1818. On March 29th, 1815, he married Mary Ann Fleetwood in Holborn. Mary Ann was a widow who brought at least one daughter, Frances, to the marriage, instantly making John a stepfather and expanding his family responsibilities. Over the following fifteen years, they would have at least six children together: Cornelius (born 1820), Mary Ann (1822), John (1823), Helen (1825), William (1827), and George (1830).

In about 1828, John moved his shop to 29 High Holborn, renting the premises from Joanna Hollingworth. This premises served John only for a year until 1829 when the death of his landlady forced another move. Contemporary descriptions of his premises at the time describe it as a "capital bow-front shop ... [with a] convenient paved yard, and workshop".

This forced relocation led John to 44 High Holborn, where he would spend the final years of his life. The new premises continued the family tradition of combining residence and workshop, allowing John to maintain the close supervision of his craft that was common at this period even in central London.

The engraving business surely required not just artistic skill but also commercial acumen. John's regular business trips throughout England to collect debts and secure new commissions reflect the reality of pre-telegraph commerce, where personal relationships and face-to-face negotiations were essential for business success. These journeys, while financially necessary, also exposed traveling merchants like John to significant risks.

He not only sold across the country, but he sold abroad too. An advert in the Dublin newspaper "The Freeman's Journal" of 1831 advertises bookbinding tools by Paas & Co being sold through a Dublin agent called T. Coldwell. The nature of John's work meant that he often carried substantial sums of money and valuable items during his travels. Clients would pay in cash, and the high value of his engraved pieces meant that even a small commission could represent weeks of a craftsman's wages. This combination of portable wealth and predictable travel patterns made engravers like John attractive targets for criminals.

May 30th, 1832, began like many other business days for John Paas. At 42 years old, he was at the height of his professional capabilities, with a growing family, an established business, and a reputation that extended well beyond London. His journey the day before to Leicester was a routine business trip to collect debts and perhaps sell further goods to bookbinders, printers, and other members of the book trade in Leicester.

As he went about the town to settle these business affairs, John enquired about the solvency of local businesses, including one James Cook, who was a bookbinder that owed money for tools purchased from Paas. Paas was planning to visit Cook during that day.

The last confirmed sighting of John Paas alive occurred at approximately six o'clock that evening at the Stag and Pheasant inn. The landlord would later recall John's exact words as he prepared to leave and see Cook "now I will go and finish my business." With these prophetic words, John set off toward James Cook's workshop, carrying with him the gold watch, purse of money, and personal effects that would soon become evidence in one of Leicester's most notorious criminal cases.

What transpired in James Cook's bookbinding workshop that evening was a brutal murder that shocked the residents of Leicester and beyond. Finding he was unable to pay Paas and being in financial trouble, Cook realised that Paas might be carrying a significant amount of money and he decided to kill and rob him. Cook struck Paas over the head, killing him, after which he dismembered and burned his body in the stove in his workshop. The horrible smell and large amount of smoke from his workshop that evening caused his neighbours to call the police, but when they arrived they found only the partially burned remains of Paas and Cook himself long since fled.

The investigation that followed demonstrated both the emerging sophistication of Victorian criminal justice and the community's determination to see justice done. The methodical collection of evidence, the identification of John's personal effects by his relatives, and the coordination of a multi-county pursuit showed a level of police work that was revolutionary for its time.

James Cook fled to Liverpool and attempted escape to America. He was captured just before his ship sailed, and while grappling with the police he attempted suicide using laudanum - but the bottle was broken in his hand and he was arrested.

He was tried and found guilty of murder, being hanged in Leicester on August 10th, 1832, perporedly before a crowd of 40,000 people. He was the last man in England to be gibbited after his execution, his body being exhibited in an iron cage on Saffron Lane, just outside Leicester. Writing in 1888, Edmund Venables, recalled the murderer's corpse "proved so powerful a magnet to the lovers of the horrible that people came from all parts to see the ghastly spectacle, until, as I remember it being described to me by the gaoloer, 'it was like a fair under the gibbet'". Because of this, the body was shortly afterwards taken down and buried.

John Paas's death on May 30th, 1832, cut short a life dedicated to craftsmanship, family, and honest commerce. The burial of a small pile of burned bones at Old Paddington Church a few weeks later marked the end of a personal story that had begun with royal connections and ended in national notoriety through no fault of his own. The practical consequences of John's death extended far beyond the immediate tragedy. His widow, Mary Ann, faced the daunting task of settling his affairs and providing for their children, the youngest of whom, George, was only two years old. To this end, his business and premises at 44 High Holborn was sold to Samuel Seare in 1833. There would be no further engraving done by immediate members of the Paas family.

Samuel Seare placed several advertisements in April 1833, announcing that he would continue the same business of "Engraver, Printer, Book-binders' Tool-cutter and Stationer" at 44 High Holborn.

Mary Ann Paas eventually moved to Regent Street, where she lived until her death in 1865 - more than three decades after her husband's murder.