Few of us look forward to a visit to the dentist, but we are now accustomed to a level
of dental care unheard of in the past. It was not until 1858 that the first dental hospital
opened in the UK and the Royal College of Surgeons started to license dentists in
the same year. Prior to that, ‘barber-surgeons’ and even blacksmiths performed
extractions on unwilling patients and it is likely that, away from major towns and
cities, dental care was very limited.

So, imagine how you would cope if your front teeth were badly diseased, painful or

even absent: how would you bite into that delicious Cox’s Orange Pippin, or that tasty
but hard piece of cheddar? You could cut pieces off with a knife, or you could use
a scoop which would allow you to minimise waste and which would be easy to slip
into your pocket after use. Such scoops have been known for many centuries and were
made of a hard wood e.g. boxwood, silver or most commonly, bone. The knuckle-
bone of the sheep was most frequently used, one end being sawn off and the other
cut back on one side and rounded off at the end: the result was a strong and useful
implement which was personal to you.

These bone apple-scoops, sometimes called apple-corers, are increasingly rare
although they were certainly in use well into the 20th century: I have purchased a
couple found in the cutlery drawer of a house being cleared in Witney. There is
no doubt that they were very personal items; scoops bearing the owner’s initials
are not uncommon and folk-lore in some regions suggests they were buried with
their owner. A scoop found in a tenth century grave in Ireland gives some credence
to this story although it could not be proved that the skeleton and the scoop were
contemporaneous.

Decoration on scoops can range from a simple cut cross (a sign for good luck) to
intricate carving of initials and even messages. Scoops were sometimes given as love-
tokens, much in the fashion of Welsh love spoons, and often bear carved hearts and
the initials of the betrothed couple.

Strangely enough, written accounts of the use of apple scoops are few: there is a
20th century description of a woman using a scoop to remove the flesh from an
apple ‘leaving the skin intact, until it would crumple in the hand like paper’, but I
know of no other accounts. There is little doubt that these scoops performed another
function of removing the core of an apple prior to cooking, but the very personal
nature of many of them suggests that their main use was in eating.

The illustration gives an indication of the variety of scoops which can be found: let
me comment on these examples, going from left to right, as this will bring up some
interesting points.

The first is a plain unadorned scoop with no decoration
Second is a scoop showing a saw-cut cross, a very common form of decoration.

The third scoop shows slightly more complex cross-hatching, again done with a saw

The fourth is more complex and accomplished

The fifth is where the owner has really gone to town with a saw and a drill!

The sixth is more organic in design and more difficult to achieve

The seventh is a typical example showing the owner’s initials, in this case ‘W.B’

Number eight; now we get really complicated! This scoop has carved on it ‘JG July
30th 1853 ME, and on the shaft ‘Remember’. What lovers’ tryst resulted in this being
skilfully carved: one can only imagine….

Number nine is clearly a love token: dated 1771, with a prominent heart carved on it
and three further hearts on the reverse, plus the initials AC. A very professional piece
of work

Ten is another mystery: The initials M and H are separated by two hearts with the date
1856 below. What you cannot see from this photo is that on the shaft is carved ‘Here
we suffer grief and pain: here we meet to part again : Goodnight’. I suspect this one
does not signify a happy occasion.

The cut-out carving on number eleven is again of hearts and nares (nostrils), elements
which figure frequently on Welsh love spoons. Around the top are carved a hen and
two chicks!

The scoop with the wooden top ( bottom of the photo) obviously has some
ecclesiastical connections: why the cross? What is the significance of the carved
crown? I don’t know.

Finally, here’s one to think about: The whitish scoop with the fancy initials on it
is carved from ivory, but it mimics the sheep- bone examples. Why carve such a
thing in ivory? Perhaps it comes down to fitness for purpose, and maybe a member
of the gentry saw a servant using a bone scoop to good effect and had it copied in a
more ‘upmarket’ material!

WriteAntiques is grateful to Geoff Smaldon for permission to reproduce this article.

Forget white, refined, granulated sugar, though. In the 1700s, sugar was bought in huge conical loaves weighing as much as 18lbs, although small loaves of about 3lbs were more common for domestic use.

In order to prepare the sugar for use, lumps were broken off the loaves and then cut into smaller pieces using the intimidating implement pictured here: a pair of sharp-bladed sugar nips, which were a common sight in kitchens wherever sugar was used.

None of this process was ever seen outside the kitchen, however. Only when the sugar was broken down into manageable pieces was it served in highly decorative and delicate sugar bowls, fashioned in either silver or porcelain in designs that matched the other objects on the tea tray.

And while drinks were served with accompanying silver spoons, they were far too delicate to do anything other than stir the liquid. This explains why the Georgians used tongs once the sugar reached the tea table.

But that’s still not the end of the story. To help dissolve the little rocks of sugar in a hot drink, it was necessary to grind them against the inside of the glass or cup with a silver or glass sugar crusher, often mistaken today for the swizzle sticks so loved by the cocktail society of the 1930s.

All of the above means that anything to do with sugar has created a huge area of interest for today’s antiques collectors.

Tea first arrived in England in 1657 and by 1718, the dawn of the Georgian period, it had taken over from silk as the most important imported trading commodity.

Sugarcane is thought to have originated in New Guinea, and was spread along routes to Southeast Asia and India, the latter country probably being responsible for the process of boiling the juice into crystals around 500 BC.
Sugar was discovered by the Brits when King Richard’s Crusaders returned home with news of this pleasant tasting “new spice” in the 11th century.

Sugar was introduced to the New World by Christopher Columbus in 1493, while the Court of Elizabeth I sweetened almost everything they ate with sugar, perhaps because the Queen had a sweet tooth

Sugar beet was first identified as a source of sugar in 1747 and by 1750, there were 120 sugar refineries operating in Britain, but output was small and vast profits were made from the sale of this “white gold”.

However, the vested interests in the cane plantations made sure that sugar beet stayed as no more than a curiosity, a situation that prevailed until the Napoleonic wars at the start of the 19th century when Britain blockaded sugar imports to continental Europe.

At this time unrefined sugar ranged from dark reddish-brown to white in colour and in addition to being served as proof of the wealth of its users, it also had a special status as a medicine, blended with other herbs and spices.

By 1850, sugar had been transformed from a luxury to a commodity in everyday use, but by then the mechanics of the ritual of taking tea were already set in stone.

At first, the only way to serve tea was using the family’s best silver for everything from the teapot to the sugar tongs although Sheffield plate, which appeared in the late Georgian era, came in a close second particularly among those who liked to be seen to be rich, but actually weren’t as well heeled as they pretended.

The style of silver sugar accoutrements followed the fashion of the day and reflected that of furniture and porcelain. A notable influence was the arrival in England of highly skilled Huguenots silversmiths who had fled France as a result of the persecution ordered by Louis XIV. By the 1730s, the influence of French decoration on English silver was at its height.

Sugar nips which acted on the scissor principal, and which appeared from around 1715, were among the first items to boast the new designs, featuring “rocaille” decoration of mythological monsters, sea gods and shells. They replaced the often plain and crudely made sugar tongs which resembled the tongs used by blacksmiths or at the fireside.

As the period drew to a close, decoration became increasingly more florid and the ornate little sugar nips suffered accordingly. Instead of being decorated by hand, they were made from cast silver and were often accompanied matching spoons. Beware of Victorian reproductions of such examples which were rarely hallmarked and therefore difficult to date.

The U-shaped sugar tongs first appeared in the 1770s and were much more plain and functional. Because they more closely resembled spoons, they adopted similar patterns such as fiddle and thread and shell, following the restraint shown by the style of Robert Adams designs.

Expect to pay £80 to £120 for a tidy pair of sugar tongs and perhaps a quarter of that for a pair made in silverplate from either Birmingham or Sheffield where the industry flourished.

Again the novice buyer must beware later reproductions and be able to read silver hallmarks – don’t be fooled by the pseudo marks on more modern electroplated nickel silver which might look the business but aren’t.

Sugar cutters, on the other hand, made from steel, have no decoration whatsoever, and look like they mean business. For £200 to 300, you could buy a pair such as those illustrated which a set an oblong wooden base for stability in safety.

Less than half that price would buy you a pair not unlike a pair of pliers, set with a steel leaf spring which was often prone to being snapped off.

In either case, the jaws of the cutters are fan-shaped and very sharp, so take care when you handled them. Their function is obvious and they are collected purely for their quirkiness as long since defunct household gadgets.

Sugar crushers, on the other hand, are almost always charmingly decorated. The earliest were made from clear glass and date from the mid-18th century. By the 1780s, fine quality twisted crushers were made from silver and Sheffield plate, although these are now rare.

Today’s collectors are most likely to find glass examples dating from the mid-Victorian era. In all cases sugar crushers measure between five and six inches and all have basically the same design: a clear rod with one end flattened like a paddle and the other end terminating in a loop or a disc.

They cost but a few pounds, although rare examples in green or Bristol blue glass, or those with spiral air or colour twists running through their stems fetch a premium. Expect to pay £100 plus for good examples of the latter.

With the price of colour twists wine glasses spiralling out of reach for all but the well-heeled collector, such Victorian glass sugar crushers make a charming collection. Place half a dozen of them in a good Georgian rummer next to the silver tea tray strategically placed on your Adam-style sideboard and you have the perfect conversation piece next time you have friends round for . . . coffee!

Picture shows: A good pair of brass and steel Georgian sugar cutters, worth £200-300, pictured with a modern representation of a sugar loaf.

antiques@chris-proudlove.co.uk