AN IMPROVEMENT IN THE MANUFACTURE OF CERTAIN MILITARY, NAVAL, AND OTHER UNIFORM AND LIVERY BUTTONS
Year: 1824

page_text: TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, we, JAMES
DEYKIN and WILLIAM HENRY DEYKIN, both of Birmingham, in the County of
Warwick, Button Makers, send greeting.
WHEREAS His most Excellent Majesty King George the Fourth, by His
Royal Letters Patent, bearing date at Westminster, the Twenty-third day of
December, in the fifth year of His reign, of His especial grace, certain know-
ledge, and mere motion, did give and grant unto us, the said James Deykin
and William Henry Deykin, our executors, administrators, and assigns, His
especial licence, full power, sole privilege and authority, that we, the said
James Deykin and William Henry Deykin, our executors, administrators, and
assigns, and every of us, by ourselves, or by our deputy or deputies, servants,
or agents, or such others as we, the said James Deykin and William Henry.
Deykin, our executors, administrators, and assigns, should at any time agree
with, and no others, from time to time and at all times thereafter during the
term of years therein expressed, should and lawfully might make, use,
exercise, and vend our Invention of "AN IMPROVEMENT IN THE MANUFACTURE OF
CERTAIN MILITARY, NAVAL, AND OTHER UNIFORM AND LIVERY BUTTONS," within
that part of His said Majesty's United Kingdom of Great Britain and
Ireland called England, His Dominion of Wales, and Town of Berwick-upon-
Tweed, and also in all His Colonies and Plantation abroad abroad, in such
manner as to us, the said James Deykin and William Henry Deykin, our

page_text: executors, administrators, and assigns, or any of us, should, in our descretion,
seem meet; in which said Letters Patent is contained a proviso that if we,
the said Jame; Deykin and William Henry Deykin, or one of us, should not
particularly decribe and ascertain the nature of our said Invention, and in
what manner the same is to be performed, by an instrument in writing under
our hands and seals, or under the hand and seal of one of us, and 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 Letters
Patent, that then the said Letters Patent, and all liberties and advantages
whatsoever thereby granted, should utterly cease, determine, and become void,
any thing therein before contained to the contrary thereof in anywise notwith-
standing, as in and by the said Letters Patent, relation being thereunto had,
will more fully and at large appear.
NOW KNOW YE, that in compliance with the said proviso, we, the said
James Deykin and William Henry Deykin, do hereby declare that the nature
of our Invention, and the manner in which the same is to be performed, is
described and ascertained as follows, that is to say :-
Whereas, according to the mode now practised for the making such military,
naval, and other uniform and livery buttons, as are commonly called wrought
buttons (whether the same be gilt or plated), after the blanks for the buttons
are cut out and annealed, they are then placed on the bottom or anvil die, in
which the device or pattern is engraved, and then struck by the hammer or
upper block or die. The shank is then soldered on, the great heat for which
purpose causes a scale upon the button, which is afterwards removed by acids.
The button is then cleaned and finished, being first gilded (if so intended).
Now, in consequence of the scale being so formed after the device, impression,
or pattern is struck, and of the use of acids to take the same off, the edges or
sharpness of the device, impression, or pattern are blunted, and, in some
measure, defaced. According to our improvement or Invention, the blanks for
the buttons (of whatever metal they may be), being cut or formed and
annealed in the usual manner, the shanks are then soldered on the blanks, as
near to the centre as possible, the soldering to be effected either at a lamp or
in a stove, according to the descretion of the manufacturer, and then the scale
is removed by an acid or acids, or the button cleaned in the usual way. After
the process of removing the scale or cleaning the button, it is then placed on
a split die, or a die with a hole in it, to admit the shank (being the anvil
or lower die), with the shank downwards, and the device, impression, or
pattern is engraved on the hammer or upper die; the button is then struck by
the hammer, or upper die, either in a stamp or press, and afterwards clipped,

page_text: edged, slightly, cleaned (if any impurity adhere to it), gilded (if intended to
be gilded), and finished in the usual way. But should the metal forming the
buttons of such as are intended to be gilt prove hard, or crack, or for any
other cause require to be annealed again, after soldering on the shanks, the
buttons, after being prepared and placed on the anvil or lower die, as aforesaid,
must be partly or imperfectly struck, and then annealed in close boxes of
copper or other metal, to prevent the accession of air, which might cause the
soldering of the shanks to give way, and then the buttons cleaned again with
acid, replaced on the anvil or lower die again, struck by the hammer or upper
die, so as to complete the device, impression, or pattern, and then the buttons
finished as before mentioned. Or otherwise (though we do not consider this
mode near so perfect as that above described), the blanks may be annealed
and stampt in the usual way previously to soldering on the shanks, and the
shanks may be afterwards dovetailed in, either in the manner in which mother-
of-pearl button shanks are fastened, or otherwise by first soldering the shank
to a round bit of metal, making a groove in the bottom or under side of the
button, or struck blank and setting or fastening such bit of metal with the shank
attached to it in such groove either before the usual process of clipping.
edging, cleaning, and gilding the button (if intended to be gilded) or afterwards.
New we, the said James Deykin and William Henry Deykin, consider that
the advantages resulting from this our invention or improvement are as follows,
that is to say:-
"The pores of the metal being closed by the stamping are not afterwards
opened by the application of great heat in soldering on the shank, and the
formation of the scale on the button, in soldering on the shank after the device
or pattern is struck upon it, is prevented, whilst the necessity of removing the
same by an acid or acids is dispensed with after stamping (or after the last
stamping if the annealing in close boxes as before described is practised), so
that by such means the sharpness and delicacy of the device, impression, or
pattern is much better preserved and defined.
In witness whereof, we have hereunto set our hands and seals, this
Twelfth day of February, One thousand eight hundred and twenty-

page_text: xtraordinary in Chancery.
AND BE IT REMEMBERED, that on the same Twelfth day of February,
in the year above mentioned, the aforesaid James Deykin and William Henry
Deykin came before our Lord the King in His Chancery, and acknowledged
the Specification aforesaid, and all and every thing therein contained, in form
above written. And also the Specification aforesaid was stamped according to
the tenor of the Statute in that case made and provided.
Inselled the ninth do