EVERY one is familiar with the name “Sheffield Plate,” and many have a vague idea as to what, superficially, marks its distinction; there are fewer, however, who know its story. It is interesting. A few years prior to the middle of the eighteenth century—1742 is the generally accepted date—there lived in a little house on Sycamore Hill in the English town of Sheffield an ingenious mechanic, Thomas Bolsover by name. His knife, which had a handle made partly of silver and partly of copper, had been broken, and one day in a leisure moment Bolsover took it to his attic room to repair it at the little work-bench he had fixed up there. In the course of this operation an unusual accident brought about the fusing of the copper and silver parts of the knife-handle. To Bolsover’s surprise he found the metals had cohered, forming a copper basis with a surface of silver.

To a stupid mechanic this would have given rise to no reflection, or only to futile and passing curiosity. To Bolsover it at once brought the reflection that a process developed by experiment from the results of this accident would be of definite utility. In view of the fact that the value of silver at that time was three times what it is to-day, the discovery of a substitute for the solid precious metal was of great commercial importance.

Bolsover was a cutler by trade and steel-working was Sheffield’s chief industry. So little silver-working had been attempted in the town that there was not even an assay office there; in fact, one was not established until some thirty years subsequent to Bolsover’s discovery and inventions. Although Bolsover was only a struggling workman, he had the good fortune of interesting a Mr. Pegge of Beauchief, who furnished him with the capital to set up a manufactory of articles produced by the new process. Buttons, buckles, snuff-boxes, and knife-handles were turned out from the new shops on Baker’s Hill. This business Bolsover conducted in conjunction with one, Joseph Wilson. During this period Bolsover was probably so concerned with his work and the manufacture of the small articles mentioned that it never occurred to him that his process was capable of greater developments. Changing conditions open new channels that are to be anticipated only by imaginative minds. Bolsover’s mind was, I think, less imaginative than of a generally intelligent and practical turn. It was sufficient for him, in all probability, that he had stumbled on material which would replace silver in the manufacture of the small articles that appealed to his commercial instinct.

The middle of the eighteenth century was a period in which only the very well-to-do could afford articles of silver for household use. The middle class still contented itself with pewter. It apparently remained for Joseph Hancock, a brazier who had been in Bolsover’s employ, to realize the possibilities of Bolsover’s copper rolled-plate process (as it was then and for a long time afterward called), as a suitable material for silverware. Hancock produced tea-pots, coffee-pots, candlesticks, tankards, waiters, and so on.

It may seem strange that neither Bolsover nor Hancock followed the new industry for long. As astute business men, they might be expected to have anticipated the vogue that the copper rolled plate was later to enjoy. On the other hand, I think one should take into consideration the fact that the well-to-do of the day sought no silver substitutes, and that on the tables of the middle class such things as epergnes, bread-baskets, and cake-baskets were hardly to be found before 1750, while coffee-pots and milk-jugs were rare even in silver, and tea-kettles and tea-urns even more so. As these various articles came into more extended use in silver form, they suggested to the immediate followers of Bolsover and Hancock the greater commercial field that would open to their manufacture in copper rolled plate. Still the old Tudor & Leader firm, founded by Dr. Sherburn in 1758 and existing till 1814, a firm advertising “the best wrought silver plate,” devoted most of its attention to the making of buttons and snuff-boxes.

Authorities generally assign to about 1760 the earliest table pieces, except those (and they were very few) which Hancock produced. After this time the copper rolled plate, the manufacture of which Bolsover and Hancock found less remunerative than the metal rolling business they entered, developed rapidly. By 1774 there were some sixteen firms engaged in the hollow-ware making in Sheffield alone, and Boulton had established a factory for copper rolled plate in Birmingham. We may assume that Sheffield plate, as the ware came to be called then, became widely popular, for Ashworth, Ellis, Wilson, and Hawksly opened branches away from Sheffield—in Paris and in Dublin. There were, of course, many improvements in Sheffield plate, such as the method of preparing for and applying the ornamental silver edges which was under the patents of Mr. Roberts of Roberts & Cadman in 1824.

To another discovery we may credit the decline of the fine copper rolled plate after 1840. It seems that a medical student, Wright by name, studying with Dr. Shearman of Rotherham, near Sheffield, discovered a process of depositing silver on copper by electro-decomposition. He sold his discovery to Messrs. Elkington in Birmingham, who took out patents, March 25, 1840. Those who have not studied the matter usually rest under the impression that Sheffield plate, as collectors know it, is an electroplated ware. On the contrary, although many of the beautiful original Sheffield-plate forms have been imitated in electroplated articles, it is not the latter that hold a collector’s interest. Moreover, the true Sheffield plate so treasured to-day has the silver rolled on copper and not on nickel or white metal. I suppose tons of machine-made copper articles, electroplated, pass to-day with the unknowing as true Sheffield plate. Such of these as imitate the fine old forms that have been unsurpassed are certainly preferable to other modern wares that lack the beauty of form and the traditions of design. However, the electroplated wares should be declared such, and should not be fabricated to deceive.

Another point is that the cost of making copper rolled plate is twice the cost of making electroplate. It is, I think, better for the home furnisher to pay twice as much for a few excellent things than to have twice as many inferior ones at the same price. Modern Sheffield plate—that is to say, the rolled plate of to-day—is nearly all worth having. The old Sheffield pattern-books and many of the dies for the forms survived the capricious fortune that for so many years led the older art to give way to the commercial aspect of electroplate. Now, electroplating does not wear well unless it is done on nickel; a hard copper basis, moreover, enhances the beauty of the silver coating, and brings out a quality which nickel and white metal do not.

As it was not until 1784 that Parliament repealed the act that prohibited marking plated ware, no Sheffield plate that is genuine is found with a mark antedating 1784. From 1784, to, say, 1880, Sheffield plate may bear mark and maker’s name beside it. The firm of W. Green & Co. was the first to have its mark and name registered for Sheffield plate; this was September 8, 1784. However, the collector finds pieces bearing names and marks together very rare. Marks are generally so inconspicuously placed as often to be missed even when they do occur. Careful examination is necessary to discover them.

It should be borne in mind that the genuine Sheffield-plate metal consisted of silver and copper sheets inseparably joined and pressed out to the required thinness by being run cold through rollers. The metal was then cut and shaped by hand-hammering into the forms desired. Electroplated ware consists of a baser metal form already shaped before being coated with silver in galvanic solution. The possessor of any pieces of genuine Sheffield plate will subject them to ruin if he is, at any time, so ill-advised as to have them replated. Such a renovation will utterly destroy the beauty that intrinsically resides with even worn pieces of Sheffield plate that show copper traces.