Gower was a pioneer in Britannia or ‘white metal’, which was launched in Sheffield in the late eighteenth century.  Britannia metal has usually been credited to James Vickers in 1769.  But Gower, when he died 1813, was described as the ‘father of the white metal trade in this town, having carried on that business forty years ago, in partnership with Mr Georgius Smith’ (Sheffield Local Register).  A later authority described him as an ‘early manufacturer and a very respectable one for the trade in its infancy’, but reaffirmed that Vickers was the pioneer manufacturer (Bradbury, 1912¹).  Nathaniel Gower, ‘silversmith’, Queen Street, died on 30 August 1813 and was buried in St Peter’s churchyard.

^1. Bradbury, F, History of Old Sheffield Plate (London, 1912)