Topic: Toddy Kettle Handles

[Bernard C]

My OH, Janet, being clan Maxwell, has three toddy kettles, two unmarked, one with a fiery blue opaline handle, and another with an amber handle, and a Clews example, marked JCB bracketed with the two arrows, with an amber handle.   The handles are all 3 3/4" to 3 7/8" long and were moulded with two side seams, the ends ground flat.   They may not have been pressed, but cast, as they often exhibit a lot of fine rippling in the surface.   The only other handles I've seen are turned wood, usually ebony, and fiery white opaline.
 
How did they get the hole all the way through the centre?

... and who made them?   Sowerby?   See here.
 
Bernard C. 

[Anne]

I never knew they were toddy kettles Bernard! I had a brass one like those on your Clews link with a wooden handle but have never seen glass handles on them.

[Bernard C]

Anne — Limited experience can leave you with erroneous impressions.   Before I started browsing the internet for them, I thought all toddy kettles had glass handles, and even when I saw my first hardwood handle, I assumed it was not original, but a replacement for a damaged glass handle, made by the owner's local furniture maker.

It looks to me as though fruitwood and glass handles were the standard options, with ebony handles as the luxury version at a premium price, but that's only an informed guess.

It would be most helpful if these handles appeared in an early Sowerby trade catalogue, but this is unlikely, as listing specialist trade goods, only sold to perhaps three or four Birmingham metalbashers at the most, may have been regarded as an unprofitable waste of space.

... and, as glass handles only seem to have been used on toddy kettles, is this evidence in favour of Sowerby (or whoever made them) keeping costs down by shipping them directly to wholesalers in Scotland for fitting to the kettles?

Bernard C.