Old Sheffield Plate Old Sheffield Plate is a form of Silver
Plate, made by heat fusing silver onto copper. The two metals
fuse extremely well and once fused, act as one in response to
manipulation. The process was discovered around 1743 and quickly
became very popular. However, with the invention of
Electroplating in the 1830s, the Old Sheffield Plate industry
started to struggle, unable to compete with this new, more
economical process. By the 1850s, just over 100 years after its
birth, the industry was effectively dead. What is clear, is that
Boulsover realised the financial potential of the process he had
discovered. He created a successful business producing fused
metal buttons which proved very popular with the middle classes,
wishing to effect the look of the wealthier elite. For some
time, he managed to keep the process secret but inevitability,
others began to join him in the field. It was Joseph Hancock who
was the first to realise the wider commercial possibilities of
the new process which he applie