Bread board

Object Type
This wooden breadboard with appropriate decorative carving is an example of Victorian ingenuity in reviving old designs to facilitate a domestic task.

Trading
Cole's memoirs, Fifty Years of Public Life (1884), explain all the frustrations of attempting to interest manufacturers in this design, which is by John Bell (1811-1895). Such a task was obviously made easier if the same manufacturer made both board and bread knife, so Cole showed Bell's plaster model to Joseph Rodgers & Son, the cutlery manufacturers of Sheffield. They produced a version which they said would have to retail at the uncommercial price of £4 4s (£4.20). By having another board made in London, Cole demonstrated that the design could be made and retailed for £3 3s (£3.15). The second attempt by Rodgers produced a board that could be sold for £2 2s (£2.10). This example of board and bread knife was bought from Rodgers in 1865 for £1 16s (£1.80) .

Materials
This design was also available in porcelain at various prices, made by Minton & Co., and could also be fitted with an electro-plated rim, made by Benjamin Smith, a London silversmith. Examples of all three types were shown in the Exhibition of Recent British Manufactures organised by Cole at the Royal Society of Arts, London, in 1848.