Silverplate
In the 1830s George Richard Elkington and his brother Henry Elkington patented the process for electroplating silverand by the 1840s had perfected the techniques to make them famous. Electroplate or silverplate was a completely different process from Sheffield plate. Instead of fusing two or three pieces of metal, the method used electricity to deposit pure silver onto a base metal. Various base metals were used but “nickel silver,” an alloy of copper, zinc and nickel, proved to be the best for electroplating.
