Chats on Old Copper and Brass

by Fred. W. Burgess

The Kitchen.

Kitchen utensils and domestic appliances which the housewife of olden time deemed necessary are of peculiar interest in that they help us to recall the habits and customs of former generations. It is not always easy to arrange a model kitchen in that there are many old utensils of copper and brass which must have been used side by side as periods overlapped, although some have a much older origin than others. It is said that the kitchens of well-stocked old family mansions still yield some curios when thoroughly examined, and that it is not at all an uncommon thing to find there utensils the object of which has almost been forgotten. They are relics of an older day, and utensils which a modern cook would not deign to use. Such discoveries, however, are few and far between, for the melting-pot and the cupidity of those anxious to clear unnecessary encumbrances and perhaps make a little towards refurnishing, has left but few objects of interest in the kitchen. It is, however, there and in the old houseplace that we may look for something of interest. Some will go on using old vessels long after newer utensils have taken their place in the more advanced households, and there are some cooks who use successfully saucepans and kettles of almost antique pattern which the student of the cook's art in the modern schools of cookery would find difficult to manipulate. They have been taught how to make tasty dishes with aluminium vessels and enamelled pans, whereas heavy and clumsy brass and copper utensils served their grandparents. The cook's art is appreciated to-day as it was in the past, and at all periods the domestic workshop has been surrounded with a halo of romance. Shakespeare has rendered the caldron of olden time memorable in "Macbeth." Of the caldron boiling in the dark cave he makes the witches cry:

"Double, double toil and trouble,

Fire, burn; and caldron bubble."

FIG. 24.—BRONZE CALDRON.
(In Trinity Hospital, Leicester.)

The cooking-pot is the sustainer of life, in that it gives strength to the weary and to the starving. To the poor dumb creatures, however, it is the end of life, and in savagery human life has been sacrificed to the gluttony of fellow-men. Wonderful stories are at times told of great feasts and of the magnificence of the kitchens of olden time, where the vessels and the cooking-pots were of extravagant size, making up, perhaps, for the fewer culinary utensils, for in early days the furnishings of the kitchen were few in number although massive and strong. Many of the baronial halls of the Middle Ages, and the homes of wealthy landowners in more recent days, have been the scene of great feasts. Merrie England rejoiced on such occasions when the roasting-jack and the spit contributed to the success of the feast, and the caldron or cooking-pot boiled upon the open hearth. In some old kitchens there are preserved ponderous bronze and copper pots, some so large that we can scarcely imagine that they were made for actual use. In the hall of Trinity Hospital at Leicester there is preserved a large caldron of bell metal, holding upwards of sixty gallons, which has been used as the cooking-pot of the institution from its foundation until quite recent times. This quaint old relic, now venerated as a curio, is locally called the Duke of Lancaster's porridge-pot, for it is said that it was made to the order of Henry, Duke of Lancaster, in 1331 (see Fig. 24). Not far removed from the corner where the old metal pot is shown to visitors there is a massive nutmeg-grater, a kitchen relic of olden time, which on the occasion of one of her visits to Leicester Queen Elizabeth presented to the hospital. Many old castles have relics of the feast to show visitors, and others no doubt could produce equally interesting examples of the coppersmiths' or the founders' art were they to search the vaults and cellars where disused metal-work was in years gone by stowed away. Visitors to Warwick Castle are familiar with "Guy's punchbowl," the remarkable metal caldron which is nearly twice the size of that attributed to the Duke of Lancaster, for it weighs, along with a fork said to have been used to handle the meat, 807 lb.

Most of these old vessels were cast, but some copper-work was hammered by hand, and those which have been preserved to us testify to the brawny arm of the smith and the strength of his blow when by hammer and hand he wrought them. Such copper caldrons were often made in two or more parts, and having been shaped on the block, were afterwards riveted together. It is puzzling at times to understand local and trade terms in that they frequently differ from the commonly accepted names of cooking vessels. Thus, these wrought caldrons or pots were frequently designated tripod kettles. A very fine example of such a wrought copper kettle was recovered a short time ago from Whittlesey Mere and is now in the Peterborough Museum. A century or more ago the Mere was famous in Huntingdonshire and many water parties were held there. The kettle recently found is thought to have been a relic of those events, and to have been used on the margin of the lake.

The fine caldron of cast brass illustrated in Fig. 27 was found during excavations in Water Lane, in London. It is peculiar in that it has two-eared handles and projecting feet. It is very substantial, and may be regarded as typical of the early metal caldrons, several of which have been found in London. Another cooking vessel, smaller in size, having a curved handle and being in good preservation, a domestic relic of the seventeenth century, which was dug up in Milton Street, Cripplegate, is illustrated in Fig. 28.

FIG. 25.—SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY BRASS PAN.
FIG. 26.—BRASS TRIPOD POT.

FIG. 27.—CALDRON OF CAST BRASS.
FIG. 28.—BRASS COOKING VESSEL WITH CURVED HANDLE.

Reference has been made to the baronial halls, and to the numerous relics which have been lost to futurity. There are, however, some well-known castles where, although the kitchens have been replenished from time to time, the older forms of cooking vessels have been perpetuated. Until recent days the kitchen arrangements at Windsor Castle remained much as they had been for many years previous, and even now copper and brass retain a favoured position and are very much in evidence. Windsor has been the scene of much feasting, and many great State events have put a strain even upon the domestic resources of that famous Royal residence.

The great kitchen of the castle is supplemented by a vegetable kitchen, a green kitchen, and a scullery, and around these rooms there is a bright array of copper pans and cooking utensils, mostly bearing the monogram of George IV, for it was in his reign that many new culinary appointments were added. These vessels, large and small, were in constant use during the reign of Queen Victoria. Her late Majesty was averse to change. In her days oak out of Windsor Forest was burned in the grate, and the spits and roasting-jacks and other kitchen accessories were in keeping with the copper and brass pans and kettles. Great changes have been made since the accession of George V, for Queen Mary supervises the management of the Royal kitchens, and many modern cooking vessels have been substituted for older ones.

The collector of copper and brass culinary utensils has seldom an opportunity of adding the large bronze caldrons and relics of Royal kitchens to his collection. He has to be content with exploring lesser domains, and securing wherever possible the smaller cooking vessels of days gone by. These are frequently quite as interesting as those of larger size, and there is a wealth of copper still lying dormant in antique shops, and in some instances in the scrap-heaps of the old metal dealer. Without going any further back the saucepans of the seventeenth century well reward the discoverer of such relics. That century was a time when pious mottoes were carved upon the lintel beam and when old coffers and other pieces of massive oak were decorated with such sentiments. The brassfounders followed suit and ornamented pots and pans, and enriched them with mottoes just as they cast such inscriptions on bells and mortars. Two very interesting seventeenth-century vessels are illustrated on p. 165. One of these, Fig. 25, was discovered some years ago in Fetter Lane, and is now in the Guildhall Museum. The other, Fig. 26, is a tripod pot, the handle of which has a loop near the bowl. It is probably of early seventeenth or late sixteenth-century workmanship. The brass skillet of seventeenth-century make, illustrated in Fig. 29, may be seen by the curious in the British Museum. There is no uncertainty about its date, for it is marked 1684, and along the handle is the quaint motto "Pitty the Pore." Collectors may be reminded that inscriptions are sometimes stamped; at others engraved, and they are frequently met with on quite unimportant vessels. The metal used for such utensils was chiefly of brass, but often of latten, an alloy in which there was an admixture of zinc, or of tin in what was known as white latten. As it has been stated already, brass came into vogue late in the sixteenth century, and soon became popular for kitchen utensils; latten, however, was a favourite alloy for spoons and the smaller objects, especially for porringers for mulling wine. Concurrent with the use of copper and its modern alloys bronze appears to have been used in this country even as late as the beginning of the seventeenth century, the cooking vessels illustrated in Figs. 30 and 31 being bronze of this late type.

FIG. 29.—SKILLET (BRASS), THE HANDLE OF WHICH IS ENGRAVED WITH THE MOTTO "PITTY THE PORE."

FIGS. 30 AND 31.—BRONZE COOKING VESSELS, ATTRIBUTED TO THE BEGINNING OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.
(In the British Museum.)

The skillet, which continued a favourite vessel, commonly called a saucepan, originally had three short-curved feet, and the handle was curved, too. It was a development of a still earlier cooking vessel; its prototype of the sixteenth century having a globular body with short-curved feet, and frequently two handles.

The twentieth-century collector, accustomed as he is to machine-and factory-made goods of uniform finish and of regular shapes, is apt to be a little bit disappointed with the copper curios roughly made and badly formed. It would appear as if most of the collectable copper goods were made after the days when the old guilds so carefully controlled the making of copper and latten in Lothbury. When their power of control waned, craftsmen who had been employed by guild members worked for themselves, and there was but little supervision over the metal wares made by the coppersmith, who was often a retailer of his own wares. When the hardware dealer or copper man became an established trader in the eighteenth century he would employ a journeyman coppersmith in his little workshop, who would fashion the utensils with a hammer on a wooden block, and afterwards planish them by hand as he thought fit. In the making of such goods there was great irregularity, and the dealer and his customer, too, were dependent upon the whim of the craftsman. That was before the days of machine-made goods. Instead of the brass or copper being pressed and stamped by machinery and carefully finished the utensils were made in a rough and ready way on the wooden block, and simply hammered in the rounded cavities which had been made in it. Saucepans, stewpans, and jelly moulds were beaten into shape, and then hollowed and dished. It is said it was a healthful trade, for many of the old coppersmiths had passed their threescore years and ten shaping kettles and deftly fashioning from a sheet of brass even quite ornamental domestic articles of utility; they would decorate by hand a brass chestnut roaster with no other tools but a small hammer and a punch, and with the same simple instruments they would work a fancy pattern on the lid of a warming-pan. Some coppersmiths won fame in the fashioning of furnace-pans, better known as washing coppers, and others would undertake the roofing of houses and churches. One notable firm in London, whose copper saucepans and cooking-pots had been sold for a hundred years or more, achieved the zenith of their fame when they produced that enormous piece of copper-work, the ball and cross of St. Paul's Cathedral, which is referred to and illustrated in another chapter.

FIGS. 32 AND 33.—COPPER WATER JUG AND WATER POT.

FIG. 34.—COPPER WATER JUG AND COVER.
FIG. 35.—BRASS TWO-HANDLED WATER VESSEL.

There is yet another reason given why so many of the old copper pots and pans are irregular in shape and are often fitted with apparently unsuitable handles. It is that most of these old vessels at one time or another have undergone repairs, and were frequently treated by unskilled workmen. Among the street cries of London one of the oldest was: "Any pots or pans to mend?" The travelling tinker was a repairing coppersmith, too, and much of his time was occupied in mending the copper and brass cooking utensils used at the farmhouses and in the villages through which he passed. His methods of dealing with the vessels entrusted to him for repairs were not always the best, as museum relics testify.

Drinking cups, tankards, and flagons constitute another very important section of collectable curios. They were, however, chiefly made of pewter in the days before glass and earthenware became general. Some were undoubtedly of copper. This metal, however, was chiefly used for large jugs in which water and other liquids were carried. Water vessels vary in shape, although certain characteristics are frequently noticeable. The typical English-made jug and water vessel, such as those shown in Figs. 32, 33, 34, and 35, are very graceful in shape, the handles being light and very suitable. They make remarkably welcome additions to a collection of metal, and are appropriate ornaments on an old oak sideboard.