There were advertisements in the journals of the days of Charles II. In Anne's day in the Spectator we find on June 2, 1712, advertisements concerning a preparation for "polishing and setting Razors, Penknives, and Lancets, not to be paralleled, being much more durable and smooth, never growing rough by using, but setting Razors with greater Fineness and Exactitude than any other sort possibly can. Price 1s. each. Sold only by Mr. Allcrafts, a Toy Shop at the Blue-Coat Boy against the Royal Exchange in Cornhill and Mr. Paishon, a Stationer at the Maypole in the Strand."
Sheffield goes back to 1624, when the Cutlers Company was incorporated by Act of Parliament. Cutlery and tools were the great features, but later there grew up a special branch known as "steel toys." Button-hooks, corkscrews, key rings, nut-crackers, swivels and spring hooks, and many other articles. Here then was the foundation of trade long established and trade customs long in operation. It is not therefore surprising to find that when the great impulse came with factories and mills arising on every hand for rolling plate and manipulating it into shapes acceptable to the world of fashion, that Sheffield rose to the occasion. Her catalogues, beautifully engraved and costly to produce, were embellished with designs of examples she was prepared to export to the Continent. From these Pattern Books we get a very interesting sidelight into the intricacies of the business side of the undertakings which were evidently on colossal proportions.
DESIGNS OF SALT CELLARS.
From an old Pattern Book issued by eighteenth-century Sheffield platers to Continental markets. Of the 86 copper engraved plates, many were designs made by J. Parsons & Co. Date about 1784.
(At the Victoria and Albert Museum.)
(Reproduced by permission of the Board of Education.)
In the examination of the designs each by each it will be observed that as is usual in modern trade publications every variation is given of designs differing from each other although in apparently unimportant details to the public. But this peep behind the scenes shows how exact were the traders in illustrating such differences in design.
The point arises as to whether the Sheffield platers themselves made these slight variations in design, adding here a piece of chasing and there a chain of festoons, each article having this slight variation from its fellow, or whether they were actually following the silversmiths' designs in silver plate where similar variations may have been made. We do not know. It is a moot point. If we cannot find in silver, and examples have not always been found to agree exactly with Sheffield plate reproductions, all that we know Sheffield produced we are on the horns of a dilemma. First, some of the silver designs required to indicate originals that Sheffield must have copied are missing and must have been destroyed, or, secondly, some of the designs of Sheffield had no counterpart in silver; that is to say, they were original designs made by the Sheffield silver platers as variations (as the illustrations show) of silver models.
This is an interesting point, and it has never been quite cleared up, as to whether all Sheffield plated work can be matched by having examples of solid silver plate produced as prototypes from which such models were taken. Until this is done systematically it is not quite certain whether Sheffield did or did not invent certain additions of her own in embellishing designs which originally came from the silversmith. The presumption is that she did; broad general designs as prototypes were used, but details in ornament and decoration and a series of minor differences were made to suit the technique or to offer variety to clients.