THE PIONEERS OF GALVANIC SILVERWORK
Born in Birmingham on 17 October 1801, George Richards Elkington began his career as a clerk in his uncle's optician's shop until 1824, when he inherited the family's modest gold-plated “Toys” business from his father James.
"Toys," let us remember, were not children's toys, but rather the nickname currently used to define that series of objects, from snuffboxes to smoking accessories, rather than the watch trinkets that reflected the small vanities of the Victorian gentleman in everyday life.
George's thirst for technical knowledge relating to his business was as evident as his adventurous spirit. When his cousin Henry joined the "Toys" firm, he immediately went to Paris to update himself on the latest scientific and commercial applications of industrial gilding of metals.
It was during this brief but crucial stay that George learned about the discoveries of Luigi Galvani, Alessandro Volta, and Luigi Brugnatelli.
Starting in 1830, just after returning to Birmingham, George began, together with his cousin Henry, the first experiments aimed at developing a metal gilding technique less harmful than the traditional mercury method - better known as "vermeil" - which was highly toxic due to the cyanide fumes released during the entire process.
Their serious research soon led them to achieve more satisfactory results, summarized in the gilding patent filed by George Richards Elkington on June 2, 1836.
This was the first English patent to suggest the application of an electrolytically produced metal plating to coat the surfaces of finished objects such as copper, brass and other similar metals or alloys.
The experimental research developed by the Elkington cousins almost certainly has its origins in the principle of galvanoplastic electroforming, popularized in England through the works of Warren De la Rue, published in early 1836 in the London “Philosophical Magazine”.
The electroplating method allowed the surface of a basic model - made of inert material, such as wax, plaster or resin - to be covered with a metallic coating solid enough to be detached from the original support to become a finished object in its own right.
The metal coating of the original model, suitably painted with electrically conductive substances, was created electrolytically in the galvanic bath powered by a flow of direct current, supplied by the batteries invented by JF Daniell in 1836.
Interest in the artistic and commercial applications of this revolutionary technique encouraged further research throughout Europe: in Dorpat, Germany (now Tartu, Estonia), Prof. Moritz Hermann Jacobi published his own electroplating process as early as 1837.
In England, however, the spread of research into electroforming, parallel to the publication of the Elkington patent, soon led Thomas Spencer, a Liverpool leaf engraver and gilder, and C.J. Jordan, a London printer, to both acquire, from independent sources, the knowledge necessary for the development of electroplating of metals competing with that of the Elkingtons, which were published, almost simultaneously, in 1839.
Meanwhile, the Elkingtons had been busy completing their grand Manufactory in Newhall Street, the same street as the Birmingham Assay Office - intensifying their research into electrolytic plating based on precious metals, thanks to the continued assistance of their invaluable
collaborator, the engineer Alexander Parkes who at that time was paid a good 200 pounds for his consultancy.
George and Henry Elkington soon realized that they should not underestimate their direct competitors: Professor Jacobi, who had moved to Petersburg, was too far away to be able to bother them commercially, while Jordan soon abandoned his own research.
The only real threat came from Thomas Spencer, whom the Elkingtons immediately involved in the fate of the Manufactory as a minority partner, entrusting him with control of the distribution of patent licenses in and around Liverpool, to distract him from more important claims.
The Elkingtons thus officially began their characteristic policy of “recruiting” the best scientists and inventors of the time to their cause, thus securing for themselves the absolute exclusivity of all patents applicable to the development of the electroplating technique for precious metals.
The most important of these innovations was the use of a potassium cyanide electrolyte, discovered by John Wright, a surgeon from Birmingham. He patented it following experimental testing, inspired by a passage in "Essays in Chemistry" by the renowned Swedish chemist Carl Wilhelm Scheele, which hypothesized the solubility of gold and silver cyanides in potassium.
In practice, this latter patent, purchased for 1,500 pounds by the Elkingtons in September 1840, a few weeks before the expiry date of the commercial application of their patent of 25 March, guaranteed the definitive fixing and brilliant colour of the pure silver coating deposited on the surface of the finished object.
Until then, this result had almost always been obtained by chance, in the ammonia-based solution of the galvanic bath, used in all the experiments of the Elkington cousins.
The subsequent addition of this and other chemical elements improved the brilliance and durability of the electrolytic plating to an incredible degree, to the serious detriment of the workers' health. The good intentions that had animated the Elkingtons' intentions in the past were now buried by the overwhelming success of the present.
They had succeeded in their goal, developing gilding techniques that competed with the fatal mercury-based method, thus protecting the health of a few highly specialized craftsmen. But by extending the electrolytic method to silver plating, they extended the risk of poisoning to the categories of platers and cleaners, manual professions that required no specialization and for which workers were paid the minimum wage of 30 shillings for a 60-hour workweek.
The very longevity of the 'Old Sheffield Plate' manufacturers was in itself indicative of the health which the profession enjoyed:
Thomas Boulsover, Joseph Hancock, Matthew Boulton, and Samuel Roberts all lived to be between 80 and 85. Elkington, however, died at just 42, and his cousin George at 64, leaving his four sons, Frederick, James, Alfred, and Howard, a fabulous inheritance of over £350,000.
Nothing better than this figure can quantify the commercial success of the Elkingtons but, while the relationship between them and the various inventors and research scientists was practically always positive, aimed at mutual collaboration, that between the Elkington cousins and other manufacturers developed in contrasting directions.
Among the most fruitful we can include the one with John Hardman, owner of a metal button factory in Birmingham, who, in order to fully exploit the Elkingtons' gilding patent, entered into partnership with them as early as 1837.
A second extremely positive associative relationship for the Elkington cousins was the one they established immediately following the patent of 1840, with the London silversmith Benjamin Smith Jr., a native of Birmingham, and the eldest son of Benjamin Smith himself, a colleague of Paul Storr from 1802 to 1814, in the management of the Royal House Silversmiths' Manufactory: Rundell, Bridge & Rundell.
Benjamin Smith Jr. obtained from the Elkingtons an exclusive license for the entire London region to produce and sell electroplated objects. To do this, he set up a silver plating workshop on Moorgate Street and opened a shop, under the Elkington sign, on Regent Street, in the heart of London.
His greatest contribution was to guide the Elkington cousins towards conquering the capital's market, providing them with some models designed by his father, as well as orienting their manufacturing towards the interpretation of the purest naturalistic style, considered the pinnacle of contemporary artistic expression by the arbiters of London taste.
It was in the maturity of this style, drawing on the mastery acquired from his father, that Benjamin Smith Jr. converted his cousins to the creation of models that best expressed the spirit of naturalism. The most famous of these was the Lilies of the Valley, which attracted admiration at both the Birmingham Exhibition of 1849 and the World's Fair of 1851.
Furthermore, the favour aroused by this evolution in taste unexpectedly favoured the execution of objects in electroplated metal which, thanks to their own production methods, proved to be economically competitive with respect to solid silverware and decoratively superior to the same models made in “Old Sheffield Plate”.
Even the most innovative makers of Old Sheffield plate were unable to overcome technical limitations, applying naturalistic ornamentation to already outdated basic forms. Some of them, in a desperate attempt to reduce labor costs, adapted during the transitional period to using various electroplated nickel-based alloy castings to create supports, borders, and sockets with particularly complex ornamentation.
Unfortunately for the Elkingtons, shortly after the initial enthusiasm, Benjamin Smith Jr. - whose son married George Elkington's daughter in 1840 - proved too concerned with maintaining his own reputation as a great silversmith to take the lead in popularising the new electroplated silversmithing in London.
Meanwhile, the "Old Sheffield Plate" manufacturers organized various campaigns to publicly discredit electroplated silverware, hurling the most defamatory accusations against the Elkingtons: from the inferior quality of the silver plating to the poor finishing of the products, from the absence of any artistic imprint in the design of the models to the illegitimacy of the Elkingtons' invention of the electrolytic plating method.
This latter opinion was widely held among numerous inventors and researchers in the scientific world, who felt unfairly defrauded by the subtle but fundamental definition of the Elkington cousins' patent, regarding the use of precious metals.
Meanwhile, the progress of the scientific experiments of John Stephen Woolrich, who, we recall, patented the process of electrolytic plating of copper and nickel three weeks before the Elkingtons, led him to the discovery of the first dynamo designed specifically for plating metals, which he patented on 1 August 1842.
This invention exploited the principle of electromagnetic induction developed by Professor Michael Faraday who, as early as 1833, coined the elementary scientific terms electrolysis, electrolyte, anode and cathode.
The prototype of this machine is still kept at the Birmingham Science and Technology Museum and was originally built under concession by Thomas Prime in 1844 for his laboratory in Northwood Street, where it remained in operation until 1877.
Michael Faraday himself went to see it in operation at the British Scientific Association meeting in Birmingham, accompanied by some colleagues and his wife, Sarah, daughter of one of the Barnard brothers, the first London silversmiths who, on December 3, 1842, signed the licensing agreement that granted them exclusive rights to produce electroplated objects using the Elkington method. Thomas Prime's dynamo was the biggest thorn in the side of the Elkington cousins until May 1846, when Henry Elkington managed to acquire the patent, not from Woolrich himself, who had already rejected several financial proposals made by the Elkingtons, but from Brook Evans, to whom Woolrich, in a moment of financial difficulty, had sold the patent rights. Before that date, the license to exploit the electromagnetic dynamo had already been granted not only to Thomas Prime but also to two other competitors of the Elkingtons whose factories were located in the city of Sheffield: William Carr Hutton, son of a Birmingham cutlery maker, and William Briggs who, in 1865, founded the Robert & Belk factory.
During the same period the Elkington cousins were also busy spreading the grants of their patent, and, following the agreement made with Benjamin Smith Jr., addressed their proposals to the manufacturers of "Old Sheffield Plate".
They refused any agreement, partly out of pride, but above all discouraged by the disproportionate financial demands made by the Elkingtons.
At the beginning, in fact, the Elkingtons demanded 1,000 pounds for the transfer of the right to exploit the process and the payment of a percentage for each ounce of silver deposited, in addition to the hallmarking, with their mark, of each object produced.
The firm refusal of Thomas, James, and Nathaniel Creswick in 1841, followed by that of the elderly but still authoritative Samuel Roberts, convinced the Elkington cousins to significantly scale back their demands. They set the price for the patent royalties at around £150-200 and limited, within a reasonable number of years, their royalties to a percentage of the electrolytically deposited silver, finally completely abandoning the requirement to stamp the objects with their mark. It was on these terms that the Elkingtons reached their first patent agreement in December 1842 with the Barnard brothers, followed on May 1, 1843, by none other than Garrard, Crown Jeweler to William IV.
In the city of Sheffield, where opposition to the spread of this patent, originating in the city of Birmingham, was very tenacious, the first Elkington dealer only established himself at the end of 1843.
This was John Harrison, a Britannia Metal manufacturer, who was followed in July 1845 by Walker & Coulson and in September of the same year by Broadhead & Atkin.
James Dixon instead began by having their products plated by Walker & Coulson, before applying for a licence from Elkington in 1848.
During those years, the practice followed by most "Old Sheffield Plate" manufacturers was reflected in James Dixon's attitude. Despite the Elkingtons' now reasonable demands, they still preferred to outsource their work to specialists in electroplating, rather than publicly acknowledge the commercial superiority of the Elkington process.
Thomas Bradbury, for example, after rejecting the Elkingtons' offer of collaboration in May 1850, continued producing electroplated silver objects, using J. & C. Ratcliff's electroplating baths. Samuel Roberts, on the other hand, took a radically different approach. In May 1843, he finally acknowledged that he had made a gross error in his judgment regarding the success of the Elkingtons' electroplated silverware.
He decided to sell off the entire stock of his Old Sheffield Plate Manufactory at cost, thus narrowly avoiding the catastrophic financial losses which soon afterwards characterised the bankruptcy of the more stubborn Old Sheffield Plate manufacturers.
Even internationally, the Elkington cousins' rise was thwarted from the outset by Charles Christofle himself, against whom the Elkingtons launched a lengthy lawsuit to defend their patent rights. Christofle had been fraudulently applying it, without their knowledge, since 1840, claiming to have acquired the exclusive rights from the French chemist Henry Ruolz.
It was only in 1842 that the judges upheld the Elkington cousins' claims, forcing Charles Christofle to pay half a million francs in compensation for the damages caused. Payment of this fabulous sum was, however, conditional on Christofle being granted exclusive rights to electrolytic plating—throughout France.
It is thanks to this monopoly, built on the exploitation of the Elkington patent, that Christofle built his empire.
By 1847, its turnover exceeded 2,000,000 francs. It was in the same position of financial supremacy that the Elkington cousins found themselves on the eve of the 1851 Universal Exhibition.
Their rise knew no respite: as early as 1842, to financially support their scientific research, commercial developments, and legal battles, the Elkingtons proposed to Josiah Mason, an influential industrialist, that he join them as a capital partner; in 1849, however, they decided to dissolve the partnership with Smith, paying him off to assume direct control of the laboratory and the London shop.
Meanwhile, the overall quality of Elkington's electroplated silverware had reached its peak. Their designs, which had already been improved thanks to the contributions of Benjamin Smith's designs, were further refined in 1848.
The Elkington cousins acquired much of the sample stock from the definitive closure of the Soho Manufactory, which had been at the forefront of the production of “Old Sheffield Plate” since the second half of the 18th century, under the prestigious and innovative guidance of the great Matthew Boulton.
The Elkingtons' aspirations now aimed at worldwide recognition of their manufactory's artistic supremacy. This would soon materialize, in London, during the organization of the first Universal Exhibition in 1851.
The realisation of this world first was not the result of any particular effort on the part of the British Government, but arose exclusively from the desire for reform in the field of Applied Arts, supported by Prince Albert and Henry Cole, both leading members of the Royal Society of Arts, which organised the three previous English industrial exhibitions, held in Manchester in 1845 and 1846 and in Birmingham in 1849.
The financing of the Universal Exhibition was entirely private and took place through a subscription that raised the funds necessary for the construction of the building, designed by the architect Joseph Paxton.
Work began on September 26, 1850, on land owned by the Crown, located in the southern part of Hyde Park. From that date until March 1851, the number of workers on the project gradually increased, reaching two thousand people. By May 1, 1851, the opening day of the World's Fair, construction had only just been completed, and only then did contemporaries realize they were witnessing one of the most significant cultural events of the 19th century.
There were 13,937 exhibitors, of whom 7,381 were from Great Britain and the territories of the Empire and 6,556 represented the remaining foreign countries.
The only nations that refused the invitation to the event were Japan and the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies.
In France, where the organization of a National Exhibition was already planned for 1854, the Universal Exhibition was interpreted as the ideal opportunity to compete, to their advantage, with English manufacturers on their territory.
But, due to deep-rooted hostility towards free trade and for fear of exhibiting models made with new production methods that could be plagiarised by British competitors, there were several important last-minute defections, among which those of the bronzesmiths Denière Thomire, as well as those of the crystalworkers of Baccarat and Saint-Louis, stood out.
The Exhibition was open from May 1st to October 11th 1851, excluding Sundays, from 10 am to 7 pm.
Despite the entrance fee, it was a huge success with the public, attracting 6,039,195 visitors, an average of 43,831 per day.
The objects that inevitably attracted the curiosity of visitors were undoubtedly the two most famous diamonds in the world: the Koh-I-noor, owned by Queen Victoria, and the Blue Diamond, owned by the American Henry Thomas Hope.
As for silverware, despite the time they had at their disposal and the prestige this event aroused, very few silversmiths were able to prepare new models expressly for the Exhibition.
In this sense the Elkington cousins distinguished themselves brilliantly, thanks to the creation of an ambitious gilded bronze casket, designed by Ludwig Grüner, an artist of German origin and one of the favourites of Prince Albert who, let us remember, was a native of Saxony.
The sides of this casket were decorated with four porcelain plaques depicting, in Renaissance dress, Prince Albert, Queen Victoria and the Prince of Wales, painted by Henry Pierce Bone.
Around the frieze at the base were arranged six roundels by Leonard Wyon depicting the remaining children of the Royal Family.
It is largely thanks to this work that the Elkington cousins were awarded a "Council Medal", the highest distinction awarded at the World's Fair.
The jury members, however, refused to praise the artistic applications of electrolytic silvering, ignoring all the revolutionary creations on display at the exhibition.
On the contrary, the same jury awarded one of the 2921 "Prize Medals" to Creswick, the only manufactory, together with that of Padley, Parkin & Staniforth, to exhibit exclusively objects executed in "Old Sheffield Plate", made with the old fire-plating method and finished in silver.
These were “important for their size and good taste" as the jury mentioned, praising in particular their Louis XIV and Louis XV style candelabras.
The passage of time did the Elkingtons justice in 1862, when the jury of the Paris Exhibition publicly recognized the artistic qualitative superiority of electroplated silverware, thus crowning the Elkingtons' greatest ambition.
-We thank Dr. Andrea De Giovanni for kindly allowing us to use this text taken from: "VICTORIAN SHEFFIELD PUNCHES 1841-1900" published in 2009 by De Giovanni Argenteria Srl Viale Lancetti, 34 - 20158 Milan