The History of Johnson Matthey

The Johnson Matthey Silver company is one of the oldest manufacturers of silver bars and silver products in the world; Johnson Matthey silver goes back close to 200 years! However, this company was not originally interested in silver; the founder of the company was an assayer in gold and went from there.

The 19th Century

Johnson Matthey has humble origins in 1817 when Percival Norton Johnson established a small business dealing in gold. It took five years for him to build up enough of a reputation and money to actually get offices in Hatton Garden in London and another ten years before he took in George Stokes as a partner. The business became known as Johnson & Stokes, still dealing in gold. When Stokes died in 1835, Johnson took a new partner named WJ Cock.

It wasn’t until into the 1850s that the company took off. George Matthey joined and Percival retired in 1860s, leaving three people behind to move the company forward: John Sellon and George and Edward Matthey, who took the company to the well known names Johnson Matthey and Company. The company tied itself to key banks, becoming refiners to the Bank of England. During the last half of the 19th century, Johnson Matthey and Company would deliver high quality platinum for lamps, industrial silver, platinum and iridium, and becomes award winning for its products.

The 20th Century

The 20th century would be marked with the growth of the company and acquiring silver manufacturing along with increases in platinum. Throughout the World War I years and depression years, Johnson Matthey acquired more offices and began turning up more sources for platinum which was the company’s main product for decades. In 1926, the head researcher EC Deering came up with a method of extracting and refining platinum metals and in 1928, the company patented the only working process for extracting and refining platinum metals.

In 1946, the expansion into silver took off. Johnson Matthey obtained the exclusive contracts for creating demonetised silver coins in Britain. This is important because much of the coinage began switching over at this point and so Johnson Matthey held all the cards when it came to creating coinage that would be used all over the country.

Into the 1970s, the company became known for producing catalysts to control pollution from vehicles and became award winning for its products. It is also through the 1970s and ‘80s that this company became known for its beautiful silver bars. Bars were produced in large quantities in this time period because of the high demand for silver.

In the 1990s, the company turned its attention to medical research using platinum and won awards for its work in cancer medicine using platinum. Throughout this period, the company also becomes known for creating silver and platinum jewellery, proving that the company isn’t just about the grit of technology!

Present Day

Today, the company mainly focuses on its award winning catalyst technology with a bent towards environmentalism, producing high quality gold, platinum and silver bars, and continuing expansion of its company and services. Johnson Matthey no longer produces the common 100oz bars, but they are still very popular because of the company’s reputation for excellence in metals stemming from a long history! And J.M. still produces the larger bars; it is just the smaller ones which are hard to find because they are no longer considered ‘cost effective’ by the company, so you have to purchase the bars second hand from other dealers or online. However, since Johnson Matthey silver bars were produced in high quantities in their time, they are relatively easy to find.

Johnson Matthey silver bars are widely considered to be some of the best bars in the world, with a solid history of metal working behind them. This company is popular to buy from, award winning, historically solid, and stands behind its products. If all this sounds good to you, be sure to add some of their silver bars to your collection whenever you can.

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