Silver Makers

Charles Boardman was a silversmith who started producing sterling silver items in 1844. He went on to start electroplating before setting up in partnership with Glossop in 1847. The new firm, Boardman & Glossop traded in Sheffield between 1861 and 1871, and then became Boardman, Glossop & Co in 1887 before...

Charles Boyton was a well known silversmith working in the early part of the 19th Century in the Clerkenwell area of London. In 1825 he registered his first hallmark from his workshop in Europia Place moving on to Wellington Street in 1830. He registered further marks in the 1830s. The firm thrived and moved to...

Charles Stuart Harris was from a family of manufacturing silversmiths and was an active silversmith between 1852 and 1897, running the business which eventually was to become C.S. Harris & Sons Ltd in 1897. The firm started in 1817 with John Mark Harris, a spoonmaker who moved to City Road in London around 1831....

Christopher Dresser was a designer and design theorist who was born in 1834. He became the leading light in the Aesthetic Movement and was one of the first independent designers who was not a permanent employee of a manufacturer. He specialised in the Anglo-Japanese style, popular between 1851 and 1900. Interest in...

Creswick & Co – were silverware manufacturers based in Sheffield, England. Their first mark of ‘crossed arrows’ was registered in 1811 for Old Sheffield Plate production under the name T.J. & N. Creswick. The firm showed at the Great Exhibition of 1851 and opened a retail outlet in London in 1852. They...

D. & J. Welby were gold and silver refiners and jewellers originally based in Soho, London and first appearing in records in 1827. John Welby took over the original business (which he had run with Joseph Clement) in 1834. Already well established as a gold and silver refiner, by 1852 he was also registered as...

Deakin, James & William were a manufacturer of silver and plate in Sheffield and were founded in 1866 by James Deakin. They started as James Deakin & Co and then became James Deakin & Sons in 1871. They entered their first mark with the Sheffield Assay Office in 1878. This was a ‘JD’ over ‘WD’...

Digby Scott and Benjamin Smith were London silversmiths operating in the first part of the 19th Century. Their partnership is acknowledged as producing some of the finest silver work of the time. Scott and Smith ran workshops between 1802 and 1807 in Greenwich, London and during this time were the primary silver...

Edward Barnard & Sons were recognised as potentially the oldest manufacturing silversmiths in the world and through various changes of ownership, operated until 2003 when they finally closed. They can trace their origins back to Anthony Nelme who set up a silversmiths firm in 1680 in Ave Maria Lane in London. On...

Elkington & Co was a silverware manufacturer based in Birmingham, England. The business was started by George Richards Elkington who had been apprenticed to his uncle’s silver plating business in 1815. On his uncle’s death he took over sole proprietorship but then took his cousin Henry Elkington into...