Mappin & Webb - Mappin Bros. - Mappin, Webb & Co. - Info.

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MAPPIN & WEBB - MAPPIN BROTHERS - MAPPIN, WEBB & Co. - JOSEPH MAPPIN - JOSEPH MAPPIN & BROTHERS - MAPPIN & Co.

Information - Advertisements - Examples of their work





You would need a very large book to write the history of this important business, but in the meantime we'll add snippets of information here.

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Joseph Mappin - Sheffield - 1850

Manufactory: 32, Norfolk Street, Sheffield. Wholesale warehouse: 15, Fore Street, London.

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Sent to Sea

Over 20,000 pieces of flatware, cutlery, and holloware, have been manufactured at Mappin & Webb's Royal Works, Sheffield, for the Pendennis Castle, the new Union Castle liner which is being fitted out at Belfast and is scheduled to make her maiden voyage before the end of the year.

Source: Watchmaker, Jeweller & Silversmith - December 1958

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Mappin & Webb, Ltd.

Though not the oldest of Sheffield houses, the firm of Mappin and Webb is of very respectable antiquity. The earliest records go back to the year 1797, but the business was actually founded in 1810, when Joseph Mappin & Son traded as engravers in Fargate, Sheffield. Joseph Mappin had two sons, John Newton Mappin, founder of the Mappin Art Gallery, and Joseph Mappin, a spring-knife cutler, who eventually conducted the business, with two other partners, as springknife manufacturers in Norfolk Street. This formed the nucleus of the present great manufactory in the same thoroughfare.

Occupying over three acres of ground and employing six hundred hands, the Royal Works of Messrs. Mappin & Webb are complete in themselves, and all stages of the manufacture of silver, electro-plate, and cutlery may be there observed.

The process making the most popular appeal to the visitor is the silver-plating of spoons and forks and articles of hollow-ware by electrodeposition. The firm's great speciality is their famous Prince's plate, produced by a special process, securing a triple deposit of silver and a super-protective coating on all projections and corners. Articles so plated are guaranteed to wear like sterling silver for a lifetime.

In the silversmiths' shops may be witnessed the fashioning of beautiful designs in household plate, also the production of hotel and steamship plate, now a large and important branch of the Company's business.

The convincing attraction is the palatial showroom, the finest of its kind in the Provinces, with its magnificent appointments and attractive stocks. An interesting feature for the connoisseur is a unique and charming collection of " Old Sheffield " plate, old silver, and genuine antiques.

Source: The Journal of the Institute of Metals - 1919

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1935 JUBILEE MARKING



Mappin & Webb Ltd. - London and Sheffield - 1935



Mn&Wb - London - 1934

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Design Successes

Charles Holliday, chief designer with James Dixon & Sons, won the competition for a three-handled silver cup presented to the Cutlers' Company by Sheffield industrialist and patron Sir Stuart Goodwin. Lady Goodwin presented the Company with a silver rosewater bowl designed by W.C. Smythe, of Mappin & Webb.

Source: Watchmaker, Jeweller & Silversmith - August-September 1959

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MAPPIN & COMPANY

77 & 78, Oxford Street, London, and, Royal Cutlery Works, Sheffield




Mappin & Company - London and Sheffield - 1861

A note on the left hand side of the advertisement states that Mappin & Company's catalogue is available through Saunders, Otley & Co., India and China agents.

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A Visit to the House of Mappin

Canada's Premier Jewelery Store

Situated at the corner of St. Catherine street and Victoria street, in the heart of the fashionable uptown shopping district; is the magnificent store of Mappin & Webb, Canada, Limited, the Canadian Branch of Mappin & Webb, Limited, London, England.

As becomes a store with the traditions of over a century behind it, there is an indefinable air of old world dignity about it that proves a wonderful attraction to the thousands of tourists who would as soon miss a trip to the top of Mount Royal as fail to visit "Mappin's." It exemplifies, to a degree unusual on this side of the Atlantic, Old Country courtesy and Transatlantic "hustle." In short, the service is about as perfect as it can be made.

As might be expected in a House so typically English, the bulk of the merchandise on display is made in England, in the company's own huge factories in Sheffield and London, and no matter what one's nationality may be, or how inclined to crow over "home products," it must be admitted that "John Bull" hasn't so much to learn after all!

It's a far cry from that little shop in Fargate to the great enterprise represented by the name of Mappin & Webb today, with its three magnificent stores in London and its fifteen Continental and ColoniaI branches, but the same spirit of thoroughness which animated the founder in his little shop in England's steel metropolis, is still in evidence in every phase of the business and is in a large measure responsible for its marvellous growth. The store of Mappin & Webb, Canada, Limited, indeed bids fair to outstrip the parent company in its' growth.

Reference may well be made to Mappin Diamonds. One can well believe in the truth of the company's slogan "Mappin Diamonds are famous wherever diamonds are worn."

The following is an extract from The Sheffield Daily Telegraph of December 4, 1919:

'"The name of Mappin & Webb is guarantee throughout the world for plate and cutlery of the highest quality. The founders set an example of thorough and artistic craftsmanship which has survived throughout the century of changing conditions which has rolled by since their initial enterprise, and the superb products of today worthily succeed the painstaking work of the originators.

"The present huge undertaking, which exports goods to every market of the world, owes its existence to a little engraver's shop which was started by Joseph Mappin, the great-grandfather of the Messrs. Mappin of today, in Fargate, Sheffield, in the year 1810."

Included in the store service is a mail-order department of large proportions, where all out of town business is taken care of.

Source: English Speaking World - January 1920

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Some images of Mappin & Webb's store in Montreal:










These images are from 1920.

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A 1908 advertisement noting the award of the Grand Prix with Special Diploma at the Franco-British Exhibition of 1908:



Mappin & Webb - London - 1908

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APPOINTMENTS

Mappin & Webb announce that the Board has been reconstituted under the chairmanship of Mr. J.N. Mappin Fraser who has had a life-long association with the Company. Other members are Mr. Edgar Astaire, vice-chairman; Mr. J.J. Astaire, joint managing director; Mr. Charles Burkeman, joint managing director; Mr. A.L. Oppenheim and Mr. J.F. Robinson.

Mr. C.C. Allen, Mr. W.H. Gilbert and Mr. A.O. Wall will be appointed to a local Board which will be established to manage the activities of the Mappin & Webb Group in Sheffield.

Source: Watchmaker, Jeweller & Silversmith - March 1958

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Mappin & Company - London and Sheffield - 1862

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Amongst the houses producing novelties for the winter, Messrs. Mappin & Webb, Norfolk Street, Sheffield, and 76, Oxford Street, London, deserve prominent mention. I noticed last month some choice articles in what is known as "crimped edge" ware, and since then the firm has brought out a plated cruet of the same style, which ought to be very popular for the breakfast table. They have also introduced what is styled the "umbrella fluting" work in dish covers of every size, and I hear that although only in the market a few weeks, it has had a remarkably good sale. The fluting somewhat resembles an open umbrella, and on the dinner-table, especially by gaslight, it is very effective. A taking line of goods for some time has been oak mounted with silver, or electro for biscuit boxes, jugs, marmalade dishes, and similar articles, but hitherto it has been usual for the oak to be finely planed and polished. Messrs. Mappin & Webb have now introduced a variation by making up the same articles, the body of which resembles the bark of the oak-tree, and the irregularities of the surface render the work not only a novelty, but so effective as to ensure a rapid sale.

Source: The Jeweller and Metalworker - 15th November 1885

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Mappin Brothers - London and Sheffield - 1895

Showrooms: 66, Cheapside, and 220, Regent Street West, London. Works: The Queen's Works, Sheffield.

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£2000 Reward to Catch Gem Thieves

By Ray Duncan

A jewellers yesterday offered a £2000 reward for information leading to the arrest of thieves who, earlier this month, carried out a lunchtime robbery at an Edinburgh store.

The reward has been offered by Mappin & Webb, of George Street, Edinburgh, following the incident in which £32,000 worth of jewellery and watches was stolen from a glass show case in Jenners, Princes Street.

A Lothians and Borders police spokesman said: " The reward is offered for the recovery of the property intact. Any information should be given to the police."

The robbery at Jenners was one of a series of jewellery raids on premises in Princes Street in the last few months.

Source: The Glasgow Herald - 24th October 1979

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Mappin & Webb - London and Sheffield - 1871

London showrooms: 76, 77, 78, Oxford Street, and 71, 72, Cornhill. London manufactory: Winsley Street, Electro Works. Sheffield manufactory and showrooms: The Royal Cutlery Works, 99, Norfolk Street.

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I noticed in the showroom of Messrs. Mappin & Webb the other day that the "crimped edge" ware introduced last autumn for small articles, and described in my letter for October, has now been carried out in a variety of larger ware including flower-dishes and waiters, and I am told it has had an exceedingly good run. Another novelty of this firm is a capitol representation of the round tower at Windsor, wrought in electro-plate and in different sizes, utilized as inkstands, biscuit boxes, and similar articles.

Source: The Jeweller and Metalworker - 15th April 1886

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Mappin & Webb Ltd. - London and Sheffield - 1917

London showrooms: 158-162, Oxford Street; 2, Queen Victoria Street; 172, Regent Street. Sheffield manufactory: Royal Works. Branches: Paris, Nice, Biarritz, Johannesburg, Montreal, Buenos Aires.

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Mr. F. Fidler is retiring as Mappin & Webb's shipping manager. He joined Mappin's in 1898. In his last year with the firm Mr. Fidler has seen the completion of the order for nearly 70,000 pieces of flatware and holloware to the P & O for the Canberra.

Source: Watchmaker, Jeweller & Silversmith - July 1960

For a possible connection with the Sheffield silversmith, Frank Fidler, see: viewtopic.php?f=38&t=14790&p=106697&hilit=fidler#p106697

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Mappin & Webb - London and Sheffield - 1903

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