The Chamberlains left the firm in 1874 and Edward John died in 1878, leaving effective control of Birmingham manufacturing and engineering to Joseph, and his younger brother Frederick Nettlefold as chairman in London.
[1] Nettlefold, by a series of astute mergers and acquisitions, went on to establish a virtual monopoly in the British wood-screw market.
Though both his parents were Unitarian, Nettlefold married a Roman Catholic, Mary Maria Seaborne (born 1835), in 1867.
Nettlefold died of apoplexy, aged 54, in November 1881 at his Scottish residence, Allean House, near Pitlochry, Perthshire.
He bequeathed several paintings by David Cox to the Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery, on condition that it open on Sundays.