Although items hand-plated with metal leaf date back to ancient times, large scale production dates to 1742 when Thomas Boulsover, of Sheffield, England developed a process by which silver plates were fused to base metal (generally copper) ingots by heating them in a furnace with borax.
Thomas Boulsover (1705 – 9 September 1788), Sheffield cutler and the inventor of Sheffield Plate, was born in what is now the Ecclesfield district of the city and died at his home at Whiteley Wood Hall, on the River Porter.
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This material became known as Sheffield Plate and Boulsover, in partnership with fellow Sheffielder Joseph Wilson, began to manufacture buttons, buckles, spurs and small boxes of the material.
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