The Birmingham Assay Office, one of the four

assay office Assay offices are institutions set up to assay (test the purity of) precious metals. This is often done to protect consumers from buying fake items. Upon successful completion of an assay (i.e. if the metallurgical content is found be equal or bett ...

s in the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and ...

, is located in the Jewellery Quarter,

Birmingham Birmingham ( ) is a city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1.145 million in the city proper, 2.92 million in the We ...

. The development of a silver industry in 18th century

was hampered by the legal requirement that items of solid silver be assayed, and the nearest Assay Offices were in

Chester Chester is a cathedral city and the county town of Cheshire, England. It is located on the River Dee, close to the English–Welsh border. With a population of 79,645 in 2011,"2011 Census results: People and Population Profile: Chester Loca ...

and

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

Matthew Boulton Matthew Boulton (; 3 September 172817 August 1809) was an English manufacturer and business partner of Scottish engineer James Watt. In the final quarter of the 18th century, the partnership installed hundreds of Boulton & Watt steam engin ...

and Birmingham's other great industrialists joined forces with silversmiths of

Sheffield Sheffield is a city in South Yorkshire, England, whose name derives from the River Sheaf which runs through it. The city serves as the administrative centre of the City of Sheffield. It is historically part of the West Riding of Yorkshire ...

to petition

Parliament In modern politics, and history, a parliament is a legislative body of government. Generally, a modern parliament has three functions: representing the electorate, making laws, and overseeing the government via hearings and inquiries. Th ...

for the establishment of Assay Offices in their respective cities. In spite of determined opposition by London silversmiths, an

Act of Parliament Acts of Parliament, sometimes referred to as primary legislation, are texts of law passed by the legislative body of a jurisdiction (often a parliament or council). In most countries with a parliamentary system of government, acts of parliame ...

was passed in March 1773, just one month after the original petition was presented to Parliament, to allow Birmingham and Sheffield the right to

assay An assay is an investigative (analytic) procedure in laboratory medicine, mining, pharmacology, environmental biology and molecular biology for qualitatively assessing or quantitatively measuring the presence, amount, or functional activity of ...

silver. The Birmingham Assay Office opened on 31 August 1773 and initially operated from three rooms in the ''King's Head Inn'' on New Street employing only four staff and was only operating on a Tuesday. The first customer on that day was Matthew Boulton. The assay office is managed by a board of 36 "Guardians of the Standard of Wrought Plate in Birmingham", between six and nine of whom must be connected with the trade. The

hallmark A hallmark is an official mark or series of marks struck on items made of metal, mostly to certify the content of noble metals—such as platinum, gold, silver and in some nations, palladium. In a more general sense, the term '' hallmark'' can a ...

of the Birmingham Assay Office is the

Anchor An anchor is a device, normally made of metal , used to secure a vessel to the bed of a body of water to prevent the craft from drifting due to wind or current. The word derives from Latin ''ancora'', which itself comes from the Greek � ...

, and that of the Sheffield Assay Office was the Crown. A story about the origins of this hallmark goes that meetings prior to the inauguration of both Birmingham and Sheffield Assay Offices in 1773 were held at a public house called the

Crown and Anchor Tavern The Crown and Anchor, also written Crown & Anchor and earlier known as The Crown, was a public house in Arundel Street, off The Strand in London, England, famous for meetings of political (particularly the early 19th-century Radicals) and vari ...

on the

Strand, London Strand (or the Strand) is a major thoroughfare in the City of Westminster, Central London. It runs just over from Trafalgar Square eastwards to Temple Bar, London, Temple Bar, where the road becomes Fleet Street in the City of London, and i ...

. It is said that the choice of symbol was made on the toss of a coin which resulted in Birmingham adopting the Anchor and Sheffield the Crown (which was changed in 1977 to the

White Rose of York The White Rose of York (Latinised as ''rosa alba'', blazoned as ''a rose argent'') is a white heraldic rose which was adopted in the 14th century as a heraldic badge of the royal House of York. In modern times it is used more broadly as a s ...

). Services provided by the office include nickel testing, metal analysis, plating thickness determination, bullion certification, consultancy and gem certification. Platinum was brought within the

Hallmarking Act 1973 The Hallmarking Act 1973 makes up the bulk of modern law regarding the assaying and hallmarking of metals in the United Kingdom. Hallmarking is a way to guarantee the purity of precious metals. Metals are tested and, if they meet a certain min ...

Location

The Assay Office started in 1773 at leased rooms in the Kings Head Inn on New Street. It moved to Bull Lane in 1782, to Little Colmore Street in 1799 and then to Little Cannon Street in 1815 until its purpose-built site on

Newhall Street Newhall Street is a street located in Birmingham, England. Newhall Street stretches from Colmore Row in the city centre by St Phillip's Cathedral in a north-westerly direction towards the Jewellery Quarter. Originally the road was the dri ...

() was built in 1877, where it became the largest Assay Office in

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...

, hallmarking 13 million articles in 2003 and claiming to be the largest in the world. The Newhall Street building is listed as Grade II.

2015 relocation

Assay Office Birmingham hallmark on wall - crown

Due to lack of capacity in its

building it was decided that a new Assay Office would be needed. A site on the western edge of the Jewellery Quarter was chosen and planning permission was secured in December 2012 and construction started in May 2014 for a scheduled completion in 2015. The construction was project managed by Trebor Developments with

Galliford Try Galliford Try plc is a British construction company based in Leicester, England. It was created through a merger in 2000 of two businesses: Try Group, founded in 1908 in London, and Galliford, founded in 1916. Formerly involved in house-build ...

as principal contractor, O'Brien as sub-contractors and Glazzard Architects as architects. The new building cost £10 million to construct. This 5,000 sq ft two-storey blue brick building on Moreton Street () provides modern offices, laboratories and conference facilities. The Assay Office moved into the new building on 27 July 2015. The design of the new building incorporates special "feature bricks" which bear the key hallmarking symbols used during the Assay Office's 240-year history. These include the traditional hallmarking symbols; a lion for Sterling Silver, crown for Gold, orb for Platinum and Pallas Athene for Palladium. The Birmingham town mark, the anchor, also features prominently. There are also a dozen which feature the sponsors' marks of some of its most significant customers. In recognition of the honour, these customers contributed £12,000 to charity. The full list of companies featured is: Thomas Fattorini, R. Platnauer, Toye, Kenning & Spencer, Cooksongold, Deakin & Francis, BJA (British Jewellers' Association, now National Association of Jewellers),

F. Hinds F. Hinds is a jewellery retailing chain, operating in England and Wales. There are currently 116 F Hinds stores within the United Kingdom. History Beginnings (1856-1990) The chain is an independent retailer which was founded in 1856 by George ...

, Charles Green, Hockley Mint, Weston Beamor, Jewellery Brokers and Martyn Pugh.https://assayofficebirmingham.com/news-by-date/2015-03/ The building includes a private museum. The former building on

was converted into the "Assay Studios" a creative office space and innovation hub in November 2016.

References

* ''All About Antique Silver with International Hallmarks'', 2nd printing (2007), Diana Sanders Cinamon, AAA Publishing, San Bernardino, CA.

External links

Birmingham's Industrial History WebsiteBirmingham.gov.uk pageBirmingham Roundabout – Birmingham History Website
{{authority control Grade II listed buildings in Birmingham Product-testing organizations Museums in Birmingham, West Midlands