Thomas Boulsover

[RichardB]

No date

https://www.picturesheffield.com/frontend.php?keywords=Ref_No_increment;EQUALS;s08195&pos=1&action=zoom&id=11333

 

(link updated 4 Jan 2021)

[Bayleaf]

RichardB said:

No date

https://www.picturesheffield.com/frontend.php?keywords=Ref_No_increment;EQUALS;s08195&pos=1&action=zoom&id=11333

(link updated 4 Jan 2021)

Hi Richard.

The portrait was commissioned at the height of his career, so probably around the middle of the 1700's. It was in the style of the English School, and hung in Whiteley Wood Hall for many years. Later his family gave it to Cutlers Company, and it hung for some time in the Cutlers Hall. Later it was moved to the South Kensington Museum to hang with portraits of other inventors, where unfortunately it was destroyed in the Blitz.

[RichardB]

Hi Richard.

The portrait was commissioned at the height of his career, so probably around the middle of the 1700's. It was in the style of the English School, and hung in Whiteley Wood Hall for many years. Later his family gave it to Cutlers Company, and it hung for some time in the Cutlers Hall. Later it was moved to the South Kensington Museum to hang with portraits of other inventors, where unfortunately it was destroyed in the Blitz.

Great for the update, Thank You muchly

[RichardB]

http://www.tilthammer.com/bio/boul.html

Extract :

In 1743, he was trying to repair the handle of a customer's knife when he made a mistake which was to change his future. The knife handle was very decorative, made form silver and copper. During the repair, Thomas had to heat the handle, but he heated it too much and the silver started to melt.

When he examined the damaged handle to see if he could recover it, he noticed that the silver and copper had fused together very strongly. Experiments showed that the two metals behaved as one when he tried to reshape them, even though he could clearly see two different layers.

Boulsover carried out further experiments in which he put a thin sheet of silver on a thick ingot of copper and heated the two together to fuse them. When the composite block was hammered or rolled to make it thinner, the two metals were reduced in thickness at similar rates.

Using this method, Boulsover was able to make sheets of metal which had a thin layer of silver on the top surface and a thick layer of copper underneath. When this new material was used to make buttons, they looked and behaved like silver buttons but were a fraction of the cost.