Silver inkstands appeared in Britain in the 17th century. They usually included several features. There was a pot, or well, for ink. Another pot with a pierced cover held ‘pounce’ or sand, which writers scattered over the paper to fix the ink. There was a box for wafers to seal the finished letter, and a tray to hold the pens or quills. By the 18th century, designs were often simpler, particularly for inkstands made in Sheffield plate.

John Wakelin and Edward Parker made the first known silver globe inkstand for Lord Melbourne in 1770. Cheaper versions in Sheffield plate rapidly appeared. An ingenious mechanism permits the inkstand to open by pressing upon a stud at the top causing the sides of the upper hemisphere to swing down. Small slots accommodated a penknife, pencil and an ivory writing tablet alongside the ink and pounce pots.

Thomas Boulsover developed Sheffield plate in about 1742. He found that copper and silver fused in unequal amounts expanded together at uniform rate under mechanical pressure. The material could be rolled into sheets of laminated metal and worked like silver. The Sheffield plate industry flourished for approximately one hundred years until electroplating superseded it in the 1840s.