The Sheffield Assay Office is one of the four remaining

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 ...

, the other three being in

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 ...

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 ...

, and

Edinburgh Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. The city is located in southeast Scotland and is bounded to the north by the Firth of Forth and to the south by the Pentland Hills. Edinburgh ...

. In 1773,

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 ...

's silversmiths joined with those of Birmingham 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

silversmiths, an act of Parliament, the Plate Assay (Sheffield and Birmingham) Act 1772 ( 13 Geo. 3. c. 52), was passed in March, 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 Silver is a chemical element; it has Symbol (chemistry), symbol Ag () and atomic number 47. A soft, whitish-gray, lustrous transition metal, it exhibits the highest electrical conductivity, thermal conductivity, and reflectivity of any metal. ...

. The Assay Office was then founded and

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 ...

ed its first piece on 20 September 1773. Lots were drawn to determine which marks the offices would use. Sheffield won and chose 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 ...

, while Birmingham took 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 ...

. Originally, only silver produced within twenty miles of Sheffield could be marked at the office. From 1784, Sheffield was empowered to keep a register of all

maker's mark Maker's Mark is a small-batch bourbon whisky produced in Loretto, Kentucky, by Suntory Global Spirits. It is bottled at 90 U.S. proof (45% alcohol by volume) and sold in squarish bottles sealed with red wax. The distillery offers tours, and ...

s within one hundred miles, including those of Birmingham. In 1795, after several moves, an office was established on Fargate. In 1880 it moved to Leopold Street, and in 1958 to Portobello Street. In May 2007 it was announced that the office would move to a new purpose-built site on Beulah Road in

Owlerton Owlerton () is a suburb of the city of Sheffield, England, northwest of the city centre near the confluence of the River Don and River Loxley. Owlerton was a small rural village from the Early Middle Ages; it became part of Sheffield in the e ...

, where is it now based.Sheffield Assay Office
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accessed 25 March 2023 In 1977, Sheffield's mark was changed to the White Rose of York, and it became the last office to standardise its date letters.

References

External links

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History of the Sheffield Assay Office
Buildings and structures in Sheffield Economy of Sheffield Product-testing organizations {{England-stub