22 
House & 
Garden 
The pair of Sheffield 
urns to the left date 
from about 1800. They 
are 18" in height, and 
of course far more cost¬ 
ly than the modern 
pieces. The vegetable 
dish is reproduced from 
a design of the period 
of George III. Cour¬ 
tesy of Crichton 
Above is shown a three 
piece after-dinner coffee 
service of particularly 
graceful lines, embody¬ 
ing a beautiful old de¬ 
sign in Sheffield plate. 
The candlesticks are 
also of Sheffield, in a 
Chippendale pattern. 
Courtesy of Sheffield 
Silver Shop 
THE STORY of SHEFFIELD PLATE 
JJ hich Originated with an Ingenious Mechanic 
of the English Town of Sheffield 
E VERYONE is familiar with the name 
“Sheffield plate” and many have a vague 
idea as to what superficially marks its distinc¬ 
tion; there are fewer, however, who know its 
story. It is interesting. 
A few years prior to the middle of the 18th 
Century—1742 is the generally accepted date 
—there lived in a little house on Sycamore 
Hill in the English town of Sheffield an in¬ 
genious mechanic, Thomas Bolsover by name. 
His knife, which had had a handle made 
partly of silver and partly of copper had be¬ 
come broken, and one day Bolsover took it to 
his attic room in a leisure moment to repair 
it at the little work bench he had fixed up 
there. In the course of this operation an un¬ 
usual 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 pass¬ 
ing curiosity. To Bolsover it at once brought 
the reflection that a process developed by ex¬ 
periment from the results of this accident would 
be of definite utility. In view of the fact that 
GARDNER TEALL 
the value of silver at this time was three times 
what it is today, the discovery of a substitute 
for the solid precious metal was of great com¬ 
mercial 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 dis¬ 
covery 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. 
The Beginnings of a New Process 
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 only to be antici¬ 
pated by imaginative minds. Bolsover’s mind 
w r as, I think, less imaginative than of a gen¬ 
erally intelligent and practical turn. It was 
sufficient for him, in all probability, that he 
had stumbled on material which would re¬ 
place silver in the manufacture of the small 
articles that attracted his commercial instinct. 
The middle of the 18th 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 afterwards called) as a suitable 
material for silverware. Hancock produced 
teapots, 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 roller plate was later to enjoy. On the 
other hand, I think one should take into con¬ 
sideration the fact that the well-to-do of the 
