Sheffield Assay Office Records

Records comprising:

Minutes of the Guardians, 1777-2002

Records of the assay of silver: Proof plates: plates of legal standard silver prepared and supplied by the Royal Mint; Day books recording details of every article assayed, 1773-1827, 1832-1837, 1931-2002; Rough day books, 1773-1854 (series incomplete); Punch register 1896-2002; Jubilee punches, 1935; Record of sub-standard goods broken up, 1773-2002; Diet and duty books, 1858, 1860-1887; Register of makers' marks, 1773-2002

Records of the assay of gold: Day books, 1904-2002; sheets of impressions for the punches on gold; replies to circulars, January 1901; York rose design for gold punches, 1903

Letter and papers: Letter books and modern letter files, 1864-2002; incoming letters, 1854-1939; Copies of correspondence between the Sheffield Assay Office and the Royal Mint about its establishment and early difficulties, 1773-1776; letters and papers 1773-1816, including agreement for the first Guardians to rent premises in Norfolk Street for use as an Assay Office, 25 April 1774; agreement for the building of a new Assay Office in Fargate, 4 August 1794

Finance: papers including bank book 1805; receipts for salaries, rent and interest on loans, 1779-1787; bills for making punches, 1779-1782; bills for building work on the Assay Office in Fargate 1795-1797; accounts with the Royal Mint for assaying and transporting the diet, 1782-1792; bills for charcoal, 1780-1796; letter about site of new office in Leopold Street offered by Sheffield Corporation, 1880; cash books, 1773-2002; ledgers, 1864-1899, 1929-2002; wages books, pass books, receipts and duty money

General records: registration forms, 1897-2002; tickets sent with goods, 1774-1775; consignment notes, foreign goods, 1894-1913; drawback certificates for the repayment of tax, 1855-1890; analysis of the kind of wares analysed in various years between 1773-1886; statements of abatements, 1906-1908; trial of diet certificates, 1859-1949; circulars, printed instructions and official notices, 19th century-20th century; Acts of Parliament concerning hall marking, the Sheffield Assay Office and other provincial offices, 1754-2000; counsel's opinions, letters and other papers concerning the use of the Crown mark and the standard for separate articles

Drawings: drawings of new shaker, 1912; working drawings of old presses in marking room; specifications for new building, 1893; plans; photographs; plaster and wax impressions of date letters 1773-1886 [collected by Bernard W Watson (Assay Master 1898-1941) and Frederick Bradbury (descendant of the first Assay Master)

Guardians' minutes, registers and letters subject to 30 year closure period.

Sheffield Assay Office was set up by Act of Parliament in 1773, when local silversmiths, who resented the inconvenience of having to send their wares to London for hallmarking, joined with Brimingham petitioners to ask Parliament for their own Offices. Despite fierce opposition from the London Goldsmiths' Company, an Act of Parliament was passed, granting both Sheffield and Birmingham the right to assay silver.

The Act appointed 30 local men, including Thomas, third Earl of Effingham, as 'Guardians of the Standard of Wrought Plate within the Town of Sheffield' to supervise the work of the Office, the day-to-day running of which was entrusted to the Assay Master. The Assay Master was obliged to take an oath before the Master of the Royal Mint. A second Act of 1784 increased Sheffield's radius of registration from 20 miles to 100 miles, thus including Birmingham.

Sheffield Corporation Act of 1903 permitted the Office to assay and mark gold as well as silver, and the nature of its work was further changed following the Hallmarking Act of 1973.