I was born in London, England. The item I’m sharing is a silver teapot which is part of a tea set. There is a photo below.
It is special because English people drink a lot of tea and when my mum and dad were living in England, their friends drank a lot of tea! I found this article on a website called ‘Tea in the United Kingdom‘.
It was bought by my great great grandparents Arthur and Selina Chapman.
They passed it down to their son who was my great great uncle called Alan Chapman.
When Alan died the teapot came to New Zealand in 1998 to my grandad Chapman for his Silver Wedding anniversary.
Grandad Chapman is my dad’s dad.
The tea set has to stay in the Chapman family. Grandad will give it to my dad. My dad will give it to me or Daniel. It must not be sold (or else)!
There are some very special marks called hallmarks on the tea set that tell you where it was manufactured, when it was made, the Assay Office where it was marked and the quality of the silver. Dad and me looked up what assay means. It means the testing of a metal or ore to see its ingredients and quality.
You can see the Hallmarks here. The first hallmark is who manufactured and it was Mappin and Webb Limited.
The second hallmark is an anchor, the Assay Office in Birmingham.
The third hallmark is a lion, the quality of the silver. This silver is called Sterling Silver. There is 92.5% of silver.
The last hallmark is the date it was made. This letter ‘E’ means it was made in 1929. We looked this information up in a book Nan had and on the Internet.
