Thomas Boulsover
Encyclopedia
Thomas Boulsover Sheffield
Sheffield
Sheffield is a city and metropolitan borough of South Yorkshire, England. Its name derives from the River Sheaf, which runs through the city. Historically a part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, and with some of its southern suburbs annexed from Derbyshire, the city has grown from its largely...

 cutler
Cutlery
Cutlery refers to any hand implement used in preparing, serving, and especially eating food in the Western world. It is more usually known as silverware or flatware in the United States, where cutlery can have the more specific meaning of knives and other cutting instruments. This is probably the...

 and the inventor of Sheffield Plate
Sheffield plate
Sheffield plate is a layered combination of silver and copper that was used for many years to produce a wide range of household articles. These included buttons, caddy spoons, serving utensils, candlesticks and other lighting devices, tea and coffee services, serving dishes and trays, tankards and...

, was born in what is now the Ecclesfield
Ecclesfield
Ecclesfield is a suburb and civil parish in the City of Sheffield in South Yorkshire, England, about north of Sheffield City Centre. At the 2001 census the civil parish— which also includes the Sheffield suburbs of Chapeltown, Grenoside, High Green, and formerly Thorpe Hesley —had a population...

 district of the city and died at his home at Whiteley Wood Hall
Whiteley Wood Hall
Whiteley Wood Hall was a stately home, built in 1662 by Alexander Ashton near Sheffield. In 1757 the Hall was bought by Thomas Boulsover from his friend Strelley Pegge of Beauchief . In 1760 Boulsover bought the adjacent woodland on the River Porter from the Duke of Norfolk. Thomas Boulsover died...

, on the River Porter
Porter Brook
The Porter Brook is a river in the City of Sheffield, Englanddescending over 300 metres from its source among the sedge grass on Burbage moor behind a small farm on Hangram just inside the Peak District National Park in the west of the city at Clough Hollow, near the village of Ringinglow...

.

Boulsover completed his apprenticeship as a cutler in 1726 and, around 1740 set up his own workshop on the corner of Tudor Street and Surrey Street in Sheffield's city centre. It was at these premises that, in 1743, he discovered (by accident it is said, while repairing the handle of a knife) that silver
Silver
Silver is a metallic chemical element with the chemical symbol Ag and atomic number 47. A soft, white, lustrous transition metal, it has the highest electrical conductivity of any element and the highest thermal conductivity of any metal...

 could be relatively easily fused onto copper
Copper
Copper is a chemical element with the symbol Cu and atomic number 29. It is a ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. Pure copper is soft and malleable; an exposed surface has a reddish-orange tarnish...

 and that the resulting "sandwich" could be fabricated effectively, by hammering and rolling, as one material while maintaining the outer appearance of pure silver. This material became known as Sheffield Plate and Boulsover, in partnership with fellow Sheffielder Joseph Wilson
Joseph Wilson
-In politics:*Joe Wilson , Addison Graves "Joe" Wilson, Sr., , U.S. Representative from South Carolina*Joseph C. Wilson, former United States ambassador to Gabon, São Tomé and Príncipe and husband of Valerie Plame Wilson...

, began to manufacture buttons, buckles, spurs and small boxes of the material. The business was funded by Strelley Pegge of Beauchief who later sold Boulsover Whiteley Wood Hall
Whiteley Wood Hall
Whiteley Wood Hall was a stately home, built in 1662 by Alexander Ashton near Sheffield. In 1757 the Hall was bought by Thomas Boulsover from his friend Strelley Pegge of Beauchief . In 1760 Boulsover bought the adjacent woodland on the River Porter from the Duke of Norfolk. Thomas Boulsover died...

 in 1757. http://www.tilthammer.com/bio/boul.html

Josiah Hancock, one of Boulsover's apprentices, subsequently also began to make artistic pieces, especialmente dishes and trays and holloware such as coffee-pots.

Thomas' wife Hannah died in 1772 and was buried in St Paul's Church Sheffield.

Thomas died on Tuesday 9 September 1788 and was buried alongside his wife. http://www.tilthammer.com/bio/boul.html

There are two monuments in Sheffield erected in memory of Thomas Boulsover, one in Whiteley Woods on the hillside between Wire Mill Dam and Porter Brook, and the other in Tudor Square, in the city centre.

External links

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