A set of four George III silver sauce tureens, Tudor & Leader, Sheffield, 1777

The arms and crest (out of a ducal coronet a demi lion rampant), the latter below a baron’s coronet, are those of Longfield of Ireland, for Richard Longfield (1734-1811), who in 1795 was created Baron Longueville of Longueville, co. Cork. He was further ennobled in 1800 as Viscount Longueville (of the second creation), a title which became extinct upon his death.

Tudor & Leader (later Tudor, Leader & Nicholson), the first large-scale manufacturing platers and silversmiths to open in Sheffield, was established in 1760/61 (having previously been for a few years in the business of snuff box making). The partners were Henry Tudor (1738-1803), a Welsh-born silversmith who had trained in London, and Essex-born Thomas Leader (1733-1819); they were joined two years later by a sleeping partner, Dr. John Sherburn. Tudor’s wife, Elizabeth (née Dodworth, 1733-1781) was the half-sister of Hannah Dodworth (1707?-1772) whose husband, Thomas Boulsover (1706-1788) is credited with having discovered the technique of fusing silver and copper, upon which the Sheffield plate industry was founded.

‘Henry Tudor was a stately gentleman, of the old school, rather dogmatic. . . . Very proud. He had the character of being the proudest man in Sheffield, and he went by the name of “My Lord Henry Tudor.” There was a notion that he believed himself to be descended from the Royal Tudors.’ (Robert Eadon Leader, editor, Reminiscences of Old Sheffield, 2^nd edition, Sheffield, 1876, pp. 240-241)

Longfield, who was High Sheriff of co. Cork between 1758 and 1761, was an M.P. in the Irish House of Commons for Charleville, co. Cork between 1761 and 1768, and for Cork City between 1776 and 1783 and again between 1790 and 1796. He was married in 1756 to Margaret (d. 1809), daughter of Richard White and his wife, Martha.