Object Type
This teapot was used for making tea by infusing tea leaves in hot water, in much the same manner as today. The teapot form originally evolved in Europe from that of the Chinese wine pot. By the 19th century the British taste for tea was well established. Tea wares in a variety of materials, from expensive silver to cheaper earthenware, catered for a wide market. This teapot in electroplated nickel silver appealed to a consumer who wanted the look of silver but at a budget price. A similar engraved teapot was being offered by the manufacturers Elkington & Co. for £4 in a catalogue of 1869. A silver teapot could cost twice as much as this.

The Manufacturer
Elkington & Co. became the largest and most successful silversmithing business in England in the 19th century, supplying the top end of the domestic market as well as the emerging hotel and travel trade. The firm was founded in Birmingham by George Richard Elkington (1801-1865) and his cousin Henry Elkington (about 1810-1852), who with the capital from other business partners exploited the development of the new manufacturing processes of electroplating (silver deposited on a base metal by the action of an electric current), electrogilding (gilding by use of electricity) and electrotyping (a form of electronic casting to form the whole object). By marketing electroplate as a cheaper substitute for silver and by selling the patents for all the new techniques Elkingtons revolutionised the silver and plating trades all over the world. The market for Sheffield plate (a silver substitute of copper sandwiched between layers of silver) had collapsed by the 1850s as electroplate gained respectability and acceptance even in high society and the art world. By the 1860s Elkingtons employed about 1,000 workers at their factory in Birmingham but sought out distinguished artists from abroad such as Leonard Morel-Ladeuil to create exhibition masterpieces to retain their prestige in the commercial sector, on which the sale of cheaper goods depended.