The Trifid Spoon
This style was a passing fashion. It is obvious that such a shape with split ends was not for posterity. The design was not pleasing nor was the form utilitarian. The example illustrated ([p. 185]) was made at Newcastle in 1703, and is marked with the figure of Britannia and the lion’s head erased. The adjacent illustration with the London hall-mark of the same date shows the form which was calculated to last for a longer period. The beginning of the eighteenth century shows the attempt of the spoon-maker to invent new forms. The Exeter example of trifid form with the hall-mark for 1712 exhibits the rat’s-tail back, merely a device in technique to strengthen the bowl, although this is found as early as 1670. In 1750 this rat-tail at the back became shorter and was known as a “crop.” Its purpose was the same, to strengthen the handle in its juncture with the bowl.
Various varieties claimed recognition for the moment. They were ornamental and essayed to fix new styles, but their day was short. They stand now as collectors’ examples. The lobed end specimen illustrated ([p. 189]) shows this type with ornament on the back of the bowl, which still retains its rat-tail form in subjection. It is now merely an ornament or a relic of a former style, as the handle ends abruptly and somewhat clumsily before the rat-tail commences as an adjunct or ornament. Such a fashion was not destined to live long. This has the London hall-mark for the year 1679.
The modern spoon comes in process of evolution from these earlier forms. The straight stem of apostle or seal-top days was still retained in the flat Puritan form. We have seen that the bowl underwent a change in form, but the stem or handle similarly was the subject of inventive caprice. It became “wavy” in form in the time of William III. The Queen Anne type, apart from its pronounced rat-tail back, became developed in the reign of George I into a type which may be termed the Hanoverian spoon. The outline of the end is continued in a curve without a break. This is the new form which has continued to the present day. Whatever ornament was introduced, whether as additional to the bowl or to the handle, the form became established.
Simultaneously with this form, simple and utilitarian, was what is termed the “old English,” which is found in the middle of the eighteenth century. The handle was bent back and the rat-tail became a crop.
The fiddle pattern in common use to-day was a late eighteenth-century innovation. There is nothing beautiful in the ears of the fiddle pattern, which might well be lopped off.
It will be seen that the history of spoons is a long one and complicated by fashions. Nor is the study lightened by the various usages to which spoons may be put. It may readily be imagined that the use of coffee and tea brought the small spoon into commoner use. To-day the dainty spoon at five o’clock tea is a modern usage. But there is some suggestion that in eighteenth-century days the spoon of fashion was trivial in character in comparison with the larger spoons in use.
Pope, the man of the town and depicter of the beau monde, has the lines:
Or o’er cold coffee trifle with the spoon,