The ‘Napierian’ Coffee Maker, as it became known, was first designed around 1840 by James Napier, part of the Napier family involved in the Scottish shipbuilding industry. Napier used easily obtained laboratory equipment in the original design, but over the years it was finessed, and it soon became the most popular design for a coffee maker in England. The vast majority were produced in silver plate, with sterling silver examples being incredibly rare.