OLD SHEFFIELD PLATED CANDLESTICK.
From copper-plate engraving issued by eighteenth-century Sheffield plate makers to the Continental markets. Date 1795.
(At the Victoria and Albert Museum.)
(Reproduced by permission of the Board of Education.)
At Nottingham the silver plating industry was established, and in London it obtained so great a stronghold that although it was born in Sheffield it died in London, as the craftsmen, although they found themselves somewhat moribund and a gradually dwindling body, owing to the newest invention from Sheffield—plating by electro-process—held on until some years after the new invention had extinguished the older styles elsewhere, but in the end silver plating by fusion and rolled plate work succumbed.
In regard to Ireland there is some evidence that an attempt was made to manufacture silver plate by fusion and rolling in the Sheffield manner. But very little fused plated ware was actually made in Dublin. Certain premiums were offered by the Irish government for "light plate" made in that country. Light plate evidently being understood to be plated ware. There are numerous notices and advertisements in Irish newspapers from about 1760 onwards announcing imports of Sheffield plated goods. There is no doubt that a considerable amount of Sheffield plated ware was imported into Ireland. The records of one firm show that between 1784 and 1804 plated articles to the value of £60,000 were exported from Sheffield to Ireland. Although the Dublin directories of the period show many names of Irish "silver platers," this is not evidence enough to establish the fact that any of these craftsmen worked in rolled plate; there is every likelihood that they plated small articles in the old manner and later, after the early years of the nineteenth century, with the process known as "close plating." The name "Sly. Dublin" appears on a steel meat skewer plated with silver belonging to these latter days. There is, too, the possibility that some of the Sheffield platers actually exported rolled plate in sheets, though there is no direct evidence of this, as it would have been somewhat suicidal to place in the hands of other artificers the material to convert into what would have been practically Sheffield plated ware although made elsewhere.
But there is confirmation, although somewhat meagre, that plating by fusion was accomplished at Dublin, though apparently only practised to a small extent.
In 1779 the Goldsmiths Company of Dublin complained of the great amount of plated goods imported, and in 1783 the Dublin Society offered a premium of £150, being at the rate of 6 per cent. on value of Irish plate and light plated goods manufactured in Ireland, by rollers, between 1782-3 and 1783-4.
The records show that on November 25, 1784, the sum of £24 7s. was awarded to Christopher Haynes, goldsmith, of Dublin, being at the rate of 6 per cent. on the value of light plate goods entirely manufactured by him in Ireland by rollers, from 1st July, 1783, to 1st July, 1784; value £405 17s. 3d. It is further noted that a premium of £11 17s. 4d. was paid to John Lloyd, goldsmith, of Harolds Cross, Dublin, being 6 per cent. on value of light plated goods manufactured by him in Ireland by rollers, value £197 3s. 3d.; and also premium of £2 2s. 11d. being 6 per cent. on value of plated goods manufactured by him in Ireland by rollers, value £35 10s. In 1792 "A Company of Manufacturers" in Abbey Street, Dublin, advertise plated metal for Button Makers at 4s. 4d. per pound.