A British history of German silver: Part 1 - The discovery of nickel and development of nickel alloys, 1754-1823

This essay, which will be published over two journals, traces the origins and development of the commercial manufacture of 'German silver’ (nickel silver) in Britain. Part 1 chronicles the scientific and commercial industrial development of the alloy in Sweden and Germany in the period 1754-1824. It traces Axel Fredrik Cronstedt’s discovery of nickel in 1754; Torbern Olaf Bergman’s subsequent confirmation of the discovery and refining of pure nickel in 1775; Gustav von Engeström’s blow-pipe analysis of the Chinese alloy paktong in 1776 and Ernst August Geitner’s first commercial manufacture of German silver under the trade name of Argentan from circa 1824. Part 2, to be published in Volume 24 of the Journal in 2016, will chronicle the development of the German silver industry and its commercial application to industrial art and design in Britain in the period 1829-1924, from Percival Norton Johnson’s foundation of Britain’s first nickel refinery and German silver manufactory on Bow Common and Hatfield Gardens in London in 1829 to Harry Brearley and W.H. Hatfield’s use of nickel in the development of ‘rustless’ and subsequently ‘stainless’ steel, between 1913 and 1924, which heralded the demise of Britain’s German silver industry in the post-war period.