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 bette ...

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 Northwestern Europe, off the coast of European mainland, the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

, is located in the Jewellery Quarter,

Birmingham Birmingham ( ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands (county), West Midlands, within the wider West Midlands (region), West Midlands region, in England. It is the Lis ...

. 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 in Cheshire, England, on the River Dee, Wales, River Dee, close to the England–Wales border. With a built-up area population of 92,760 in 2021, it is the most populous settlement in the borough of Cheshire West an ...

and

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

Matthew Boulton Matthew Boulton ( ; 3 September 172817 August 1809) was an English businessman, inventor, mechanical engineer, and silversmith. He was a business partner of the Scottish engineer James Watt. In the final quarter of the 18th century, the par ...

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

Sheffield Sheffield is a city in South Yorkshire, England, situated south of Leeds and east of Manchester. The city is the administrative centre of the City of Sheffield. It is historically part of the West Riding of Yorkshire and some of its so ...

to petition

Parliament In modern politics and history, a parliament is a legislative body of government. Generally, a modern parliament has three functions: Representation (politics), representing the Election#Suffrage, electorate, making laws, and overseeing ...

for the establishment of assay offices in their respective cities. In spite of determined opposition by London silversmiths, an act of Parliament, the Plate Assay (Sheffield and Birmingham) Act 1772 ( 13 Geo. 3. c. 52), 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 ...

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 Birmingham 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 (sign), 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 ''Wikti ...

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 ', which itself comes from the Greek (). Anch ...

, and that of the Sheffield Assay Office was the

Crown A crown is a traditional form of head adornment, or hat, worn by monarchs as a symbol of their power and dignity. A crown is often, by extension, a symbol of the monarch's government or items endorsed by it. The word itself is used, parti ...

. 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 var ...

on the

Strand, London The Strand (commonly referred to with a leading "The", but formally without) is a major street in the City of Westminster, Central London. The street, which is part of London's West End Theatre, West End theatreland, runs just over from Tra ...

. 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). Services provided by the office include Hallmarking, Nickel Testing, Metal Analysis, Plating Thickness determination, Bullion Certification, consultancy and Gem Certification. A full list of products and services can be foun
here, on their website.

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 Philip's Cathedral, Birmingham, St Phillip's Cathedral in a north-westerly direction towards the Jewellery Quarter. ...

() was built in 1877, where it became the largest assay office in

Europe Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...

, hallmarking 13 million articles in 2003 and claiming to be the largest in the world. The Newhall Street building is listed as Grade II. In 2016, the Assay Office relocated to its new premises at 1 Moreton Street, Birmingham.

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 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, 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, known as the Silver Collection. 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 page
(archived 30 September 2007)
Birmingham Roundabout – Birmingham History website
{{authority control Grade II listed buildings in Birmingham Product-testing organizations Museums in Birmingham, West Midlands