Thanks Digger RJ, always thought I'd find something like this if I just kept looking and finally I did. Never dreamed I'd get some sterling that cheap though.
Good score. That pattern was originally created in 1900 as “Hampton” by Henry L. Wallace for Wallace Silversmiths. Wallace suffered during the Depression of the 1930s and their business was revived by a joint venture with ‘Wearever Aluminium Inc’ under the name ‘Westmorland Silver’ from 1940 onwards.
The advantage for Wallace was Wearever’s marketing expertise and direct-to-customer delivery, cutting out the retailer middleman. Wearever saw it as a hedge for protecting the profits from their aluminium utensil business if America entered WWII, based on an assumption that aluminium production would then be diverted to defence contractors.
The Hampton pattern was re-branded by Westmorland as “George & Martha [Washington]” in 1940 and continued to be sold through to the 1960s.