Abstract
This paper discusses the results of recent research into the Thornton Archive at the Hawley Tools Collection Trust, Sheffield. The archive contains thousands of documents and artefacts relating to the silversmithing technique of sawpiercing which were donated to the Trust by Billy Thornton, latterly sole owner of the sawpiercing firm of Taylor Sawtell & Co. By utilising the artefacts within the archive as a primary database, it has been possible to reconstruct and follow through the sawpiercing process from the original sketched designs to the creation of a finished pierced product. Sawpiercing is one of a series of production stages involved in the creation of silver artefacts and its relationship to these other production processes is therefore explained and clarified. The paper concludes that the extraordinary survival of the Thornton Archive has provided a unique opportunity to study and document this little-known technique.
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