Silver Makers

Mappin & Webb is a leading retailer of fine silverware and jewellery based in London and is renown as a purveyor of luxury goods holding Royal Warrants to Queen Elizabeth II and the Prince of Wales. The firm started in 1774 when Jonathan Mappin opened his first silversmith workshop in Sheffield entering his mark in...

Martin, Hall & Co – were Sheffield based manufacturing silversmiths and electroplated manufacturers and silver, plated and steel cutlers. The firm started in 1820 with the partnership of Henry Wilkinson and John Roberts, trading as Wilkinson & Roberts. Wilkinson left in 1846 and Roberts went into partnership with...

Matthew Boulton was a craftsman based in Birmingham. He was not formally a goldsmith or silversmith but made a great contribution to the craft, becoming the greatest manufacturer of Sheffield plate in the 18th Century using Robert Adams and James Wyatt designs in the Neo-classical style. Mathew was the son of a toy...

Minerva – the assay mark the French use for sterling silver is the head of the goddess Minerva. Higher than for other countries, the French standard for sterling silver requires a silver content of 950 parts per thousand, or 95% silver as opposed to the English standard of 92.5%. A second mark of the Miverva...

George Nathan and Ridley Hayes – were silversmiths who entered their first joint mark in 1897 in Birmingham. They were particularly known for their Arts & Crafts interpretation of early English silver, producing tea sets and caddies, bowls, baskets and desk sets. They traded under the name Nathan & Hayes and had...

Old Sheffield Plate – also known as just ‘Sheffield Plate’ and ‘fused plate’ was the first commercially viable technique for plating metal. Thomas Boulsover accidentally discovered the method in Sheffield in 1743 when attempting to repair the handle of a customer’s decorative knife. He’d overheated the...

Paul de Lamerie was a silversmith based in London and described by the V&A museum as ‘the greatest silversmith working in England in the 18th Century.’ Paul was born in the Netherlands to Huguenot parents in 1688. His father became an officer in William III’s army and moved to London in 1689 when Paul was...

Paul Storr is considered one of the most talented English silversmiths of the 19th Century. His legacy of exceptionally well crafted silver has found its way into museums and private collections worldwide, including at Windsor Castle and Buckingham Palace as well as in the V&A and the Metropolitan Museum in New...

Reynolds Angels is the name given to a portrait painting by Sir Joshua Reynolds first exhibited in 1787. The picture shows five different angles of the head of five-year old Lady Frances Gordon. She sat for Reynolds in July and August of 1786 and again in March 1787. Reynolds tended to reserve his time during...

Richard Gurney was a silversmith working in London in the early part of the 18th Century. He entered his first mark as a largeworker in partnership with Thomas Cooke II in 1727 from a workshop address in Foster Lane, London. His second mark was entered under the name of ‘Richard Gurney & Co’ in 1734. […]