to Queen Victoria. In the 1850s the industry receives a much needed boost, with the reduction in the high import taxes on cocoa, allowing chocolate to be more affordable to everybody. Cadbury's later becomes one of the largest chocolate manufacturers in the world and is still in production across the world today with a major production plant in Bournville. 1828: Josiah Mason improves a cheap, efficient slip-in nib that can be added to a fountain pen. 1830: With the invention of a new machine, William Joseph Gillott, John Mitchell and James Stephen Perry devise a way to mass-produce robust, cheap steel pen nibs. This boosts the Birmingham pen trade and by the 1850s, Birmingham exists as a world centre for steel pen and steel nib manufacture; more than half the steel-nib pens manufactured in the world are made in Birmingham. Thousands of skilled craftsmen and -women are employed in the industry. Many new manufacturing techniques are perfected, enabling the city's factories to mass-produce their pens cheaply and efficiently. These are sold worldwide to many who previously cannot afford to write, thus encouraging the development of education and literacy. 1830s: Thomas Ridgway begins trading in the Bull Ring, selling tea. Ridgway later goes bankrupt. Setting up business in London, he pays back all of his creditors and continues his tea trade, becoming one of the first English tea companies to hygienically prepack tea so as to avoid adulteration. In 1876, Queen Victoria commands House of Ridgways to create a blend for her own personal use. 1832: Muntz metal is patented, an alpha-beta brass with about 40% zinc and 60% copper. Its original use is as a replacement for the copper lining placed on the bottom of boats as it maintains the anti-fouling abilities of the pure form. It costs around two-thirds that of pure copper and has identical properties for this application, it becomes the material of choice and Muntz makes his fortune. A notable use of Muntz Metal is in the hull of the Cutty Sark. 1832: William Chance, owner of a Birmingham iron merchants, invests in his brothers failing glass works in nearby Smethwick. After saving the company, this partnership later becomes the Chance Brothers. The company relies on local workers, and at one stage is known as "... the greatest glass manufacturer in Britain", taking advantage of the Birmingham Canal Navigations and the Industrial Revolution in the region.