Victorian Porte-crayon. (Pencil holder) Sampson Mordan & Co. Silver Porte-crayon Hallmarked: SM & Co.; Lion Passant; London Date f; London assay Slider band Hallmarked.
In 1822, Mordan and his co-inventor John Issac Hawkins filed the first patent in Great Britain for a metal pencil with an internal mechanism for propelling the graphite "lead" shaft forward during use, as an improvement on the less complex lead holders that merely clutched the pencil lead to hold it into a single position.