George Richards Elkington

George Richards Elkington ( born October 17, 1801 in Birmingham, † September 22, 1865 ) was a founder of the authoritative Electroplating in England.

Biography

He came on October 17, 1801 in Birmingham, the son of a spectacle manufacturer to the world. He did his apprenticeship with his uncle, a Silver Plate in Birmingham, and after his death the sole owner of the company. But later he took his cousin, Henry Elkington on as a business partner.

The science of Electrometallurgy was at that time in the development stage, but the Elkingtons quickly saw the potential. They had already discovered some patent holders for the application of electricity to metals, as in 1840 the Birmingham surgeon John Wright, the valuable properties of a solution of cyanide of silver in potassium cyanide potassium for electroplating. The Elkingtons bought and patented the method of Wright and later acquired the rights to other methods and improvements. Great new works for electroplating and gilding were opened in Birmingham in 1841 and the following year Josiah Mason partner of Elkington & Co. George Richards Elkington was died on 22 September 1865 and Henry Elkington on 26 October 1852.

A Blue Plaque plaque was many years later reveals to his factory Elkington Silver Electroplating Works on Newhall Street in Birmingham.