1084 - William Hutton & Sons, fish serving set, silver-plated, bone handles, pierced and engraved, in case

William Hutton & Sons, fish serving set, silver-plated, bone handles, pierced and engraved, in case Silver-plated, bone, two-piece fish serving set, also fish carving set, William Hutton & Sons, Sheffield, marked on the underside of the server with the plating mark "WH&S", "B" and "P", both pieces with cylindrical bone handle between relief floral collars and ball finial, 1) fish server with pointed oval, pierced blade, scrollwork with leaf motifs, encircling engraved leaf border, in the centre a plain cartouche with an engraved bird with raised wings, palmette field at the shank, plain ball finial, L. 33 cm, 2) fish fork with four broad tines, pierced scrollwork field and engraved leaf border, engraved floral and scroll decoration on the ball finial, tines slightly bent, L. 25 cm, good condition commensurate with age, light signs of use, in elongated oval case with dark violet velvet bed and magenta satin lining, case heavily worn, hinges missing. William Hutton founded the firm in Birmingham in 1800 and moved it in 1832 to Sheffield, the centre of the English cutlery industry; showrooms in London followed in 1863. Under the name William Hutton & Sons the house produced silverware, electroplate, Britannia metal and table cutlery from about 1870, from 1893 as William Hutton & Sons Ltd, until it was taken over by James Dixon & Sons in 1930. Hutton carried out electroplating under licence from Elkington & Co. and developed its own nickel alloy under the name "British Plate"; on silver-plated pieces the firm struck its mark "WH&S" with the letters "B" and "P". The earliest English fish servers of the 18th century were single pieces with a trowel-shaped, pierced blade; at the beginning of the Victorian era the large fish fork was added, and since then fish server and fish fork have been made as a pair.