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‘A place of great trust to be supplied by men of skill and integrity’: assayers and knowledge cultures in late sixteenth- and seventeenth-century London

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 May 2019

JASMINE KILBURN-TOPPIN
JASMINE KILBURN-TOPPIN*
Affiliation:
The School of History, University of Kent, Canterbury, CT2 7NX, UK. Email: J.Kilburn-Toppin-551@kent.ac.uk.
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Abstract

This article suggests that institutional workshops of assay were significant experimental sites in early modern London. Master assayers at Goldsmiths’ Hall on Foster Lane, in the heart of the city, and at the Royal Mint, in the Tower, made trials to determine the precious-metal content of bullion, plate and coinage. The results of their metallurgical experiments directly impacted upon the reputations and livelihoods of London's goldsmiths and merchants, and the fineness of coin and bullion. Engaged in the separation and transformation of matter, assayers and the affairs of their workshops were also a curiosity for those interested in the secrets of nature. Making use of a wide-ranging body of sources, including institutional court minutes, artisanal petitions, mercantile guidebooks, recipe books and natural-philosophical treatises, this article uncovers a complex culture of metropolitan expertise. We first examine the workshop spaces in which assayers undertook their professional activities, and their secretive corporate cultures. We turn next to the manuscript culture through which assayers codified and communicated knowledge, ‘secrets’ and techniques to broader urban audiences. Finally, we assess exchanges and tensions between assayers and the wider community of Londoners engaged in scientific knowledge production and dissemination.

Type
Research Article
Information
The British Journal for the History of Science , Volume 52 , Special Issue 2: London 1600–1800: Communities of Natural Knowledge and Artificial Practice , June 2019 , pp. 197 - 223
Copyright
Copyright © British Society for the History of Science 2019 

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Footnotes

I am very grateful to Rebekah Higgitt, Jim Bennett and Noah Moxham for their comments on earlier drafts of this article.

References

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33 Richard Rogers was employed as company assay master from 1559 to 1567.

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38 John Reynolds was in post as company common assayer for a decade, from 1619 to 1629.

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