Hall marks on gold & silver plate

314
HALL MARKS ON PLATE.
able, and are still much sought after, and command high prices. The
process consisted in taking a plate of copper alloyed with brass,
fusing on to it a thick plate of silver on each side, and then working
up the plate into the article desired.
Horace Walpole, in a letter to Mr. Montagu, dated September i,
1760, writes : "As I went to Lord Strafford's I passed through Sheffield,
which is one of the foulest towns in England, in the most
charming situation; there are 22,000 inhabitants making knives and
scissors. They remit eleven thousand pounds a week to London.
One man there has discovered the art of plating coffer with silver.
I bought a pair of candlesticks for two guineas, that are quite pretty."
The process was afterwards changed, and the article to be silvered
was first completely made of German or nickel silver, and
then covered with silver by means of an electric current.
The fundamental difference between the methods of manufacture
being that whereas, in the genuine Sheffield plate the base metal
was coated with silver before it was .wrought, in the electro-plate
the base metal was completely wrought and finished before it was
coated with silver.
The silversmiths' trade at Sheffield was established about the
year 1760, when Henry Tudor and Thomas Leader, who had been
apprenticed in London, came to Sheffield, where they made snuffboxes
and other small silver articles.
At first the Sheffield silversmiths appear to have considered
themselves under the Act of George K, and they sent their plate to
London for assay by the Goldsmiths' Company ; and they do not
seem to have availed themselves of the Assay Office at Chester, as
most of the Birmingham silver workers did at that time.
The Sheffield plate workers, however, found it very inconvenient
to be obliged to send their ware one hundred and fifty miles to be
assayed and stamped, at a time when the transport thereof was not
only costly, but also very slow and hazardous. The artificers of
silver in Sheffield therefore presented a petition to the House of
Commons on February i, 1773, calling attention to these facts and
praying leave to bring in a Bill for establishing an Assay Office at
Sheffield. At the same time a similar petition was presented by the
Birmingham plate workers. Ultimately the Statute of 13 George
ni, cap. 52, was passed.
By this Act, as before mentioned, the peculiar mark appointed
for the Sheffield Company is a crown.
As the Birmingham Assay Office was also appointed by this Act,
it is more particularly referred to in the notes relating to that city.
Under the Act of 3 Edward VH, c. 255, the Guardians of the
Standard of Wrought Plate within the city of Sheffield are authorised
to assay and stamp gold ware.
The change of the date letter takes place on the first Monday
in July each year. The plan adopted at Sheffield differs from all
the other offices, for instead of taking the alphabet in regular suc-
cession, the special letter for each year is selected apparently at