Tin Plate Worker

Although tin is a metal, and is an element with symbol Sn and number 50 on the Periodic Table, at the Armoury Tin Shop, the name is short for tinplated iron, the basic material that tinware is made from.  Our material is mostly iron in sheet form plated with a very thin layer of tin on its surfaces to prevent rusting.  Even in the 18th century, people commonly referred to the material as just “tin”.  The element tin is historically significant as it enters in the composition of bronze, the copper alloy that gives its name to the Bronze Age (in Europe, c. 3200–600 BCE), an historic period that predated the Iron Age.  Most pewter and soft solder alloys are tin based.

In itself, the element tin is relatively non-reactive and is non-toxic.  In rare instances, some people react to elevated amounts of tin, but vessels for food preparation or food service made from tinplated iron are deemed safe.  In fact, tin is used in the plating of copperware to make it safe for cooking by preventing the formation of toxic verdigris on the cooking surfaces.  In the 19th century, the invention of food canning took advantage of those ideal properties of tinplate.  There is a caveat concerning the lead-bearing tin solder alloy used to hold parts together in the making of traditional tinware; but to date, we have found no evidence that links tinware made this way with lead poisoning in the 18th century.  Much of the stability of the lead-bearing solder is due to the small quantities used on the outside of vessels and that the vessels are exposed to low temperatures and for short instances.  Those factors do not contribute to the leaching of lead in food.  To avoid any possible lead contamination, the solder used in the Tin Shop is lead-free, even in the preparation of paint.

At present, Nathaniel Nuthall is the only documented person working in the Armoury Tin Shop. Within the broader context of the Armoury during the War for Independence, we can document between 40 to 60 workers of various origins (Virginians, Highlanders, French, etc.) and legal status (apprentices, journeymen, contracted workers, prisoners of war, and slaves), and all are men, even the cook.  Tinsmithing was a male-dominated trade, but we can document a few exceptions, mostly in London because of recorded exemptions by the English Tinplate Workers’ and Wire Drawers’ Guild.  It is possible that more women worked in the trade than we can document because many forms of labor are not well documented, such as children’s work, for example.  In a modern museum context, anyone can apply for an apprentice position, so it is difficult to recreate the social composition of the Williamsburg of 1778.  Research is ongoing to document practitioners of the trade at the Armoury and beyond.