History of British Hallmarks
Hallmarks on British silver commonly indicate several pieces
of information about a silver object. These usually tiny marks reveal
information about the quality (finess), age, maker (sponsor) and the town where
the object has been tested (Assay or town mark).
The first hallmarking system in England was established as
law in 1300 during the reign of Edward I. The aim of this law was to protect
buyers against fraud and traders from unfair competition. Silver is a soft metal
and needs to be alloyed with other metals to enable the silversmith to work on
it.
Goldsmiths’ Hall was founded in London and charged with the
task of going around silver workshops in London and subsequently other towns in the country, testing and marking all pieces of genuine solid silver with a
leopard’s head punch which is still used as London Assay Office symbol. You may be interested to know that the hall in the word hallmark was originally
taken from the hall in Goldsmiths’ Hall.
Makers Marks were required from 1363. Earlier marks were
mainly pictorial but later as more silversmiths could read and write they
started to punch their own initials on wares.
Date letters were introduced in 1478 when an assay office was
formed at the Goldsmiths Hall. The aim of the date letters was to make assaying
officers accountable for their work.
Other assay offices were subsequently set up in other towns
with authority to hallmark silver despite resistance from London
silversmiths who viewed them as competition. Today there are only a handful of
assay offices remain in the UK in London, Birmingham, Sheffield and Edinburgh.
Other regional offices subsequently operated in Exeter (closed 1883), York
(closed 1857), Norwich (closed 1702), Chester (closed 1961), Newcastle (closed
1884), Glasgow (closed 1964) and Dublin which is still operating in the republic
Of Ireland.
