=Tin Plate Ware.=--[A. N. HOPKINS.]--(B. 638.) Fifty years ago workmen made a variety of articles with several pieces of tin plate soldered together. The introduction of machinery in the trade is reducing the number of skilled workmen. In 1835-6 Mr. Thomas Griffiths took out a patent for stamping and burnishing; shortly afterwards Mr. J. H. Hopkins commenced the manufacture of “Patent tea-pots.” Candlesticks and other articles made in the same way quickly followed, and stamping and burnishing opened up possibilities which till then had not been dreamed of in the trade. In 1840 what was thought a monster stamp was put down to stamp the top of an 18-inch imperial dish cover. Further improvements in stamping led to the trade being speedily one of the most important, both in this town and the neighbouring one of Wolverhampton. A little time later, tin plate workers turned their attention to the stamping of a few culinary articles, such as colanders, gravy strainers, &c., and of wash-hand basins. In the making of these sheet iron was used, and the articles when finished were tinned by the same process as that used by tin plate makers, and were then sold as “tinned wrought iron hollow ware,” and once more an increasing impetus was given to the trade. Milk pans and “prospecting” pans were made in this way, and the advance made just at this time by the Australian Colonies on the great discoveries of gold opened out a large field, where the goods have been bought in ever-increasing quantities, while shortly after, the Cape and South America as well as Canada became large customers for a similar class of goods. India too came into the market for brass and copper articles, while Egypt, especially about the time of the American Civil War, began to be a most important customer for the copper utensils hitherto manufactured only by the natives, but which the superior machinery the English manufacturer possessed, enabled him to produce much better and cheaper. Meanwhile the French Exhibition of 1855 had shown to our manufacturers specimens of stamping superior to anything they could produce, and one or two unsuccessful attempts were made by them to obtain a nearer inspection of the French method of stamping or more properly pressing. In one way and another it leaked out that the French makers employed a pressure plate and a gradual forcing process, instead of the sharp blow by which the English stamper pounded his material into the required shape. The late Mr. Clutton Salt purchased the patent right for this country, and in 1867 a machine was in operation at the works of the Birmingham Enamel Co., with which Mr. Salt was at that time connected, and Messrs. Griffiths and Browett took out a licence to use the patent. Improvements in stamping followed, keeping well abreast of the new process, and ultimately outstripping it, especially as regards size of vessel produced.