CHATS ON OLD
SHEFFIELD
PLATE

COMPANION VOLUME BY THE SAME AUTHOR

CHATS ON OLD SILVER

CONTENTS

CHAPTER

1. The Marks stamped upon Silver
2. Ecclesiastical Plate
3. The Mazer, the Standing Cup, the Flagon, theTankard, the Beaker, the Wine Cup
4. The Salt Cellar
5. The Spoon
6. The Posset Pot, the Porringer
7. The Candlestick
8. The Teapot, the Coffee Pot, the Tea Caddy
9. The Caster, the Sugar Bowl, the Cream Pail, the Cake Basket
10. The Cream Jug
11. Scottish Silver
12. Irish Silver

Appendix.—Tables of Date Letters, London (1598-1905)—Tableof Differences in Shields, London(Elizabeth to George V)—Illustrations ofMarks, London, Provincial, Scottish and Irish

OLD SHEFFIELD PLATED CENTREPIECE.

On circular base, with nine plated wire baskets for glass dishes on spiral branches.

Date 1775-1780.

(In the collection of B. B. Harrison, Esq.)

Frontispiece.

(All rights reserved)

TO MY FRIEND

WALTER IDRIS,

IN APPRECIATION OF

KINDRED RECOGNITION

[7]

PREFACE

Many readers have importuned me to write a companion volume to myChats on Old Silver, to complete the chain of evolution of themetal-smith's art in regard to silver plate and silver plated ware.Accordingly this volume appears as a complementary and companion volumeto that on "Old Silver," and although the former describes the historyand character of the silversmiths' work from Elizabeth to Victoria,the present volume covers a much shorter period, approximately ahundred years, when the plater's skill, in what is now generally knownas old Sheffield Plate, of superimposing a thin sheet of silver on acopper base, won a triumph in the great art of simulation until it wassuperseded by the modern electro-plating process.

The invention was discovered and first practised at Sheffield, but itsoon covered a wider area, and plated ware by fusion and rolled wasmade at Birmingham, London, Nottingham and elsewhere. But it stillretains the name of Sheffield Plate, and nothing can remove thistitle from the public mind, although it is a misnomer. "Sheffield...