Humbug Cutter

Object/Artifact

-

Waterperry Museum

Name/Title

Humbug Cutter

Entry/Object ID

2025.1.27

Description

A vintage Humbug Cutter

Context

The earliest 'pulled sugar' sugar recipe has been found in a Yorkshire manuscript in the 1500s. The method of boiling sugar, to a very high temperature, rolling it out and pulling and folding it, to create sweets is simple. Early boiled sugar sweets were called peydes, pennets, pellets and then the name 'humbug' appeared in the mid 1700s. The boiled sugar was flavoured by adding different tastes and coloured by folding a small coloured piece into the mixture before pulling and stretching it. Finally the mixture was rolled into a long thin sausage shape and cut by hand or fed through a cutter.

Cataloged By

Colin Whittle

Category

Tools

Acquisition

Accession

2025.1

Source or Donor

Gordon Dempster

Acquisition Method

Transfer

Source (if not Accessioned)

Gordon Dempster

Made/Created

Manufacturer

W. Brierley Rochdale

Notes

1844 William Brierley set up a brass foundry in Rochdale to make machine used by confectioners. By 1924 Brierley has amalgamated with two other business, Like Collier and Thomas Hartley & Son and they establish a new factory and a London office. The machines produce liquorice, marshmallow, caramel, jam and marmalade. 1993 Coates Engineering acquires Brierly, Collier & Hartley (BHC) which is still thriving today.

Web Links and URLs

Touchstones, Rochdale