A taper box or ‘bougie box’ was a cylindrical box to hold a wax taper coil. The name is derived from the French word for candle, bougie, which is derived in turn from Bougia, an Algerian town which exported wax.

The box, made of Sheffield plate, has a slip on cover with a tube or socket at the top from which the coiled taper can emerge and be held upright. Some taper boxes, like this example, had a candle extinguisher, a small hollow cone which was placed over the lighted taper to extinguish the flame without causing the snuff to smoke. The extinguisher is attached to the side by a short chain and a hook which slides into a sleeve. The taper was used mainly for melting sealing wax and for lighting candles, tobacco pipes etc., and not as a source of illumination.

Sheffield plate originated, with the discovery in 1742, that bars of silver and copper, in unequal proportions, fused by heating under pressure, could be rolled into sheets of laminated metal and worked like silver. The industry this material created flourished for about 100 years until superseded by electroplating in the 1840s.