The 1773 Act (13 George III, cap. 52) made no provision for the Sheffield and Birmingham platers, but gave powers to the Sheffield and Birmingham Assay Offices. Certain portions of this were repealed, and provision made for the marking of plated ware. But this revision only applied to Sheffield and for some reason Birmingham was omitted, therefore the Birmingham platers, although silver could be assayed at Birmingham, had to put themselves under the ægis of the Sheffield Assay Office. Hence we find Boulton & Co. registering at Sheffield. [Illustration: OLD SHEFFIELD PLATED CANDLESTICK. From copper-plate engraving issued by eighteenth-century Sheffield plate makers to the Continental markets. Date 1795. (_At the Victoria and Albert Museum._) (_Reproduced by permission of the Board of Education._)] At Nottingham the silver plating industry was established, and in London it obtained so great a stronghold that although it was born in Sheffield it died in London, as the craftsmen, although they found themselves somewhat moribund and a gradually dwindling body, owing to the newest invention from Sheffield--plating by electro-process--held on until some years after the new invention had extinguished the older styles elsewhere, but in the end silver plating by fusion and rolled plate work succumbed. In regard to Ireland there is some evidence that an attempt was made to manufacture silver plate by fusion and rolling in the Sheffield manner. But very little fused plated ware was actually made in Dublin. Certain premiums were offered by the Irish government for "light plate" made in that country. Light plate evidently being understood to be plated ware. There are numerous notices and advertisements in Irish newspapers from about 1760 onwards announcing imports of Sheffield plated goods. There is no doubt that a considerable amount of Sheffield plated ware was imported into Ireland. The records of one firm show that between 1784 and 1804 plated articles to the value of £60,000 were exported from Sheffield to Ireland. Although the Dublin directories of the period show many names of Irish "silver platers," this is not evidence enough to establish the fact that any of these craftsmen worked in rolled plate; there is every likelihood that they plated small articles in the old manner and later, after the early years of the nineteenth century, with the process known as "close plating." The name "Sly. Dublin" appears on a steel meat skewer plated with silver belonging to these latter days. There is, too, the possibility that some of the Sheffield platers actually exported rolled plate in sheets, though there is no direct evidence of this, as it would have been somewhat suicidal to place in the hands of other artificers the material to convert into what would have been practically Sheffield plated ware although made elsewhere.