QUESTION: An uncle of mine collected Victorian silverware. All the pieces he had—some 400–were from the same pattern, Renaissance. One day, he invited me over for lunch. And to my surprise, he laid out two place settings of this beautiful silverware. Not only did we use the usual fork, knife, and spoon, but we also used numerous serving pieces. Why did the Victorians use so many different pieces of silverware? Did people try to outdo each other by seeing how many different pieces they could use at a single meal?
ANSWER: Today, some people break out their silverware service for eight or twelve for holiday meals and special occasions. It naturally goes with the “good china.” But in the second half of the 19th century, wealthy Victorians laid out as many as eight to ten pieces at each place setting! How could they afford to do this? Well, for one thing, they had lots of money, and secondly, they had servants to wash and polish all those pieces.
By the 1850s, table etiquette in the English-speaking world had begun to undergo dramatic changes, thanks in part to Queen Victoria. But the invention in 1830 of a silver plating process for applying, or electroplating, a coating of pure silver to a base metal, usually copper or a zinc alloy, sealed the deal.
Up until this time silver had been sterling, solid silver that was 925 parts pure silver per
thousand—coin silver, solid silver made from melted down coins and
containing varying amounts of pure silver, and Sheffield plate, a
process that fused two sheets of sterling silver to either side of a
core sheet of copper. Sheffield plate, named for the region of England,
near Birmingham, where it was manufactured, was a process suited for
household items, such as bowls, goblets, cups, and trays, but not suited
for eating utensils.
Although Victoria's reign began in 1837, it wasn’t until the late 1800s that the opulence, extravagance, and rigidly adhered to social rituals and etiquette associated with the Victorian era reached their height. By 1850, the Industrial Revolution was in full swing, both in England and America. Manufacturers could produce silverware somewhat inexpensively thanks to silverplating, and Queen Victoria set a new standard for social mores that centered around the home and family.
For centuries, flatware, or what most people called silverware, had consisted solely of spoons and ladles of varying sizes and materials, simple forks, and cutlery, or knives. People used forks with two or three tines to hold food for cutting and used knives to spear their food and transfer it to their mouths for eating. Queen Victoria soon changed that.
She frowned upon the use of the knife for spearing food. In order to discourage this practice, she encouraged silverware manufacturers to blunt the sharp ends of knife blades. The fork, until this time used primarily for holding food in place while people cut and speared it—much like our present day carving forks—became the utensil of choice. The rule became, never use a knife if a spoon can be used, and never use a spoon if a fork can be used. By the late 1800s, manufacturers were producing forks for every conceivable use—dinner forks, luncheon forks, salad forks, dessert forks, pastry forks, fish forks, oyster forks, berry forks and ice-cream forks, to name a few.
They also produced a variety of spoons—teaspoons, five-o'clock spoons (slightly smaller than a regular teaspoon), coffee or demitasse spoons, chocolate spoons, round cream soup spoons, bullion spoons (smaller than cream soup spoons), dessert spoons, cereal spoons, and more.
However, people still needed knives for cutting, so silverware makers produced dinner knives, luncheon knives, breakfast knives, fruit knives and butter knives. To emphasize the lesser role to which the knife had been relegated, matching knives, especially those with hollow handles, became less common than today. Victorian-era place setting knives, with the exception of butter knives and spreaders, usually had solid and plain or pearl handles, as well as handles of wood, bone, and ivory.
But it was the Victorian serving pieces where the extravagance and opulence of design was the most apparent. In addition to the traditional serving spoon, serving fork, gravy ladle, butter knife and sugar spoon that are staples of today’s silver services, Victorian silver manufacturers produced such items as asparagus servers, berry spoons, cucumber servers, fish servers, oyster ladles, soup ladles, preserve spoons, salt spoons, toast servers, tomato servers, and waffle servers, among many others. These pieces were large and ornately decorated. They often heavily embossed the bowls of serving spoons and the base of the handles of serving forks and knives.
Once word of the electroplating process spread to the United States, a bevy of small silver manufacturers sprang up, primarily in Connecticut. Companies such as Oneida, Reed and Barton, William Rogers, 1847 Rogers Brothers, and Wallace, became prominent and produced some of the most collectible silver flatware of that era. Ironically, the first patterns produced in any amount were silver plate. Later, in response to customer requests, they produced some of the same patterns in sterling. Later on, they made different patterns in sterling to distinguish them from silver plate.
Makers gave their silverware patterns names rather than numbers to identify them, the idea being that names would be easier to remember than numbers. They also thought that the names, themselves, would evoke an image of gracious living. Pattern names such as Moselle, Renaissance, Berkshire, Vintage, New Century, Orange Blossom, Grenoble, and York Rose are reminiscent of that refined era.
There are probably as many different ways of collecting and reasons for collecting as there are patterns and pieces in Victorian flatware. The next time you watch a TV series like “Downton Abbey,” notice the table settings. The prop department went out of their way to make sure that everything was exactly right and even instructed the actors in the proper etiquette for the time.
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