For an object with an extremely humble purpose the humble fingerplate brought a touch of beauty to the doors of old houses from around 1800 to the 1940s. It began life as an elegant but plain piece of polished brass, perhaps with a discreet decorative border or a little reeding, in the homes of the Regency elite. Its role was to prevent the offensive marks that the unwashed fingers of the time left upon the painted finish of doors in the entrance hall and better rooms of houses of the period. As with so many unknown and unheralded inventors of the past, the identity of the fingerplate’s creator is lost in history’s fog.

Once limited to the homes of the well-to-do, and usually only available in brass, fingerplates spent the next 150 years appearing in a great variety of materials and in designs that appear almost limitless.
To mention some of the materials: these included brass, bronze, copper, tin, zinc, crystal, glass, wood (of numerous species), and ceramics. Decoration was created by casting, engraving, pressing or stamping, handpainting, transfer or the use of colour.

Styles and designs included regency, gothic, Victorian, art nouveau and art deco. Finishes provided another dazzling range of choices. Metal fingerplates may be polished and lacquered, nickel-plated or treated to resemble antique bronze, antique brass or antique iron. Timber fingerplates may be of oak, ebony, walnut or an exotic species known as cocoa wood. Timber fingerplates were often stained and then finished with shellac.

The industrial revolution brought fingerplates into the houses of the middle classes and in time they filtered even further down the social scale, bobbing up in some working class houses as if to say ‘we may be poor but we aren’t dirty’. Because our 19th century ancestors believed in the civilizing effect of decoration craftsmen and women of the time exerted all of their skills and talents in creating fingerplates of tasteful and elegant design.

Brass remained the material of choice where cost was not a matter of great importance. But by far the bigger market lay in the cottages and terraces of 19th Britain and the USA. In the period between about 1850 and 1890 the potteries of Staffordshire churned out ceramic fingerplates in numbers beyond calculation.

Ceramic fingerplates were available in white, ivory or black and came decorated with an extraordinary variety of designs. Patterns ranged from a simple gold line around the outline to the Greek key design, ferns and flowers. The 1897 catalogue of the Staffordshire firm of Bullers Limited, one of the major suppliers of fingerplates, contains references to some 540 pattern numbers. Multiply that number by the options available in colour, and by the many other manufacturers, and you begin to get some idea of the vast variety of fingerplates that may still be found in old houses throughout the British Isles, the Republic of Ireland and the USA.

Door furniture, then as now, often came in sets so that the designs on the fingerplates matched those on the doorknob and keyhole cover. China fingerplates were usually about 300mm long by about 85mm wide and had either rounded ends or came to a slight point with ogee-shaped shoulders. A miniature type, about 180mm long, appears to have been intended for households in which children lived. These were usually fitted low down on the door within reach of small, sticky fingers. Fingerplates were often, but not always, positioned in accordance with the original character and decoration of the rooms in which they appeared. Doors in a dining room or entrance hall were traditionally provided with black china fingerplates or fingerplates of other materials in a plain and dignified design. This was because the entrance hall was a formal place and the dining room was devoted to the serious business of eating. More frivolous and feminine designs may be found on the doors in the drawing room, where visitors were entertained and where the lady of the house and her daughters sat to do their sewing or play the piano.

Fingerplates are among the many significant details which combine to create the character of an old house. Their removal in the past, often coupled with the removal of original locks, was frequently the trigger for a series of changes to an old building. Screwholes and marks on the doors, left by the vacating fingerplates, were filled and hidden with a coat of paint which of course had to extend to cover all of the original joinery finishes.
Understanding the course of this process will help you to determine the shape and position of any missing fingerplates. An oblique light will often reveal patterns on the surface of the door, even beneath a coat of paint. The puttied-up holes which once held the screws that attached the fingerplates to the door may also be seen.

Take care when fitting china fingerplates. The last turn of the screw is often the one that cracks the china. Believe me, I know all about that. One way to overcome this minor problem is to cut a fine piece of chamois to the shape of the fingerplate and fit it underneath. It will provide a neat cushion for the fingerplate to sit on and minimise the risk of breakage during fitting or use. This ingenious method of protecting valuable pieces of old hardware is a tip by courtesy of the Victorian builder who placed chamois strips behind the fingerplates in an old house which I visited recently.

Where original fingerplates survive they deserve to be cherished and admired. The finishes on metal fingerplates should be treated with respect. Antique bronze or antique copper finishes were popular during the Edwardian period. Don’t scratch away in the hope of finding brass underneath. It may be there but if it isn’t the original finish it’s not what you should be seeking. The demand for fingerplates today is such that the reproduction market is the main source for the great majority of people. A good range of reproduction fingerplates in either metal or ceramics is available today. Reproductions available today are of high quality but as with anything else you get what you pay for.
Pay respect to the history of your house by discovering what sort of fingerplate once furnished its doors and reinstate what you believe to be right. There’s an important difference between restoring an old house and giving it the decorator treatment.

© Ian Evans

This entry was filed under Door Furniture. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.