An Ix- PROVEMENT IN THE MANUFACTURE OF PLATED GOODS OF VARIOUS DESCRIPTIONS
Year: 1824

page_text: TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, SAMUEL
ROBERTS, of Park Grange, near Sheffield, in the County of York, Silver
Plater, send greeting.
WHEREAS His present most Excellent Majesty King George the Fourth,
by His Letters Patent under the Great Seal of Great Britain, bearing date
at Westminster, the Eighteenth day of December, in the fifth year of His
reign, did, for Himself, His heirs and successors, give and grant unto me, the
said Samuel Roberts, His especial licence that I, the said Samuel Roberts,
my exors, admors, and assigns, or such others as I, the said Samuel Roberts,
my exors, admors, and assigns, should at any time agree with, and no others,
from time to time and at all times during the term of years therein expressed,
should and lawfully might make, use, exercise, and vend, within England,..
Wales, and the Town of Berwick-upon-Tweed, my Invention of "An Ix-
PROVEMENT IN THE MANUFACTURE OF PLATED GOODS OF VARIOUS DESCRIPTIONS;" in
which said Letters Patent there is contained a proviso obliging me, the said
Samuel Roberts, by an instrument in writing under my hand and seal, par-
ticularly to describe and ascertain the nature of my said Invention, and in

page_text: what manner the same is to be performed, and to cause the same to be
inrolled in His Majesty's High Court of Chancery within two calendar
months next and immediately after the date of the said in part recited Letters
Patent (as in and by the same), reference being thereunto had, will more
fully and at large appear.
NOW KNOW YE, that in compliance with the said proviso, I, the said
Samuel Roberts, do hereby declare that the nature of my said Invention,
and the manner in which the same is to be performed, are particularly de-
scribed and ascertained in the following description thereof (that is to say) :-
I hereby declare the nature of my said Invention, and the method by which
the same is effected. It consists in a new mode of preparing for and putting
on the ornamented silver edges upon those plated articles on which such edges
are introduced. The methods hitherto used with those goods when the edges
are of an indented kind has been to indent by filing the edge of the plated
metal on which the ornamented silver edge is to be fitted and soldered, so as
that it shall correspond with the shape of the silver edge, and then either
thinning the metal or soft-soldering a small silver thread (to protect it) along
the indented edge. The disadvantages of these methods are obvious. By
the first the raw edge of the copper must be frequently exposed conspicuously
to view, if not at first, certainly after a little use. In the second the thread
that is put on must at once attest that the article is a plated and not a silver
one. My improved method is, after filing the edge of the article to nearly
the shape (but somewhat less) of the ornamented indented silver edging, to
hard-solder a silver thread of the required strength upon the said edge, and
then to flat it with a hammer upon a metal stake to the breadth and strength
required, and so as that the outer edge will extend a little beyond the orna-
mented silver edge, which is then to be. soft-soldered on in the usual way.
The projecting part of the hard-soldered silver edge which extends beyond the
ornamented silver edge is then to be filed off, and the two edges burnished
together till the joining disappear. By this method it is obvious that even a
workman will scarcely be able at first sight to distinguish a plated from a
silver article, and that the edges themselves will endure almost as long as
solid silver ones, without the copper becoming at all perceptible.
In witness whereof, I, the said Samuel Roberts, have hereunto set my
band and seal, this Twenty-fourth day of January, in the year of our
Lord One thousand eight hundred and twenty-five.
SAMUEL (L.S.) ROBERTS

page_text: AND BE IT REMEMBERED, that on the Twenty-fourth day of January,
in the year of our Lord 1825, the aforesaid Samuel Roberts came before
our said Lord the King in His Chancery, and acknowledged the Specifi-
cation 'aforesaid, and all and every thing therein contained and specified, in
form above written. And also the Specification aforesaid was stamped accord-
ing to the tenor of the Statute made for that purpose.
Inrolled the Twenty-eighth day of January, in the year of our Lord One
thousand eight hundred and twenty-five.