Muff warmers & other antique hand warmers

antique muff or hand warmer
Small stoneware hot water bottle to fit inside a fur muff, c1910. Made by S. Maw, Son, & Sons in London. Photo by HomeThingsPast.

A hundred years ago a woman going out in the cold of winter could tuck a miniature hot water bottle inside her fur muff to keep her hands warm: like Maw’s Dainty Muff Warmer in the photo. This kind of hand warmer was on sale in late Victorian and Edwardian England.

The Thermos Hot-water Muff Warmer is a delightful little invention which is sure to be appreciated by my readers.
Ada Ballin, Womanhood, 1904

Poorer people had to find simpler ways of coping with a cold journey: heated stones or potatoes in a pocket, perhaps.

Ma slipped piping hot baked potatoes into their pockets to keep their fingers warm, Aunt Eliza’s flatirons were hot on the stove, ready to put at their feet in the sled. The blankets and the quilts and the buffalo robes were warmed, …
Laura Ingalls Wilder, Little House in the Big Woods (story of the early 1870s in Wisconsin)

The branded stoneware muff warmer was a new take on elegant ceramic or silver hand warmers that ladies’ maids filled when their mistress was about to set out on a cold carriage ride or walk. With carrying strings and tight stoppers, and optional fabric cover, these were clearly designed for people going out from home.

Hand warmers indoors

earthenware brazier or hand warmer
Dutchwoman covers her hands with her skirt to warm them over a terracotta pan of glowing coals c1650. Detail of painting by Caesar van Everdingen.

Hands could be cold indoors too. Plenty of people made good use of a hand warmer in a room or workshop with neither fireplace nor stove. Most parts of Europe had a variety of portable warmth providers, from silver braziers to ceramic novelties to heat-retaining bricks.

An earthenware pot with glowing charcoal was a common source of portable heat. It might be put on the floor, used as local heating or as a foot warmer, but it could also be raised up to warm someone’s hands -as in the picture. At night it could be used in a bed wagon.

Portable containers for hot water or glowing embers are sometimes called hand warmers even when they are used for more than just cold hands.

Pocket warmers

Neat little hinged cases with sticks of charcoal inside were in use in Europe by the first world war, when some officers carried pocket warmers. Someone patented a design in the US for a similar case holding heated metal slugs but I don’t know if these were ever made. There were also tubes to hold charcoal rods.

Pocket hand warmer. Probably early 20th century German. Photo by Matthias Kabel.

One of the newest inventions for winter comfort is a small hand warmer consisting of a hollow cylinder of fiber. A small pencil of heated charcoal is inserted through one end. The device will keep warm … for two hours.
Popular Science, USA, 1924

Chinese & Japanese handwarmers

You can’t really discuss antique handwarmers without mentioning the traditions of Eastern Asia.

Japanese hand warmer
Ceramic te-aburi hand warmer, Japan, 19th century. Photo by Mary Harrsch.

Japanese homes might offer guests a small roundish ceramic pot with fuel in to warm their hands. Called a te-aburi , it could be used by an individual at the same time as a hibachi brazier big enough for a whole group of people.

Copper or bronze box-shape hand warmers a few inches across, often with carrying handles, were called shou lu in China: convenient, portable, with glowing coals inside. China and Japan had used both metal and ceramic hand warmers for many centuries. The perforations were an attractive part of the design as well as being functional.  I like this tiny piece of Chinese pottery for warming 7th century hands.

chinese hand warmer
16th or 17th century copper hand warmer, or shou lu, 13.5 cm (5 in) long. A classic Chinese design: box, perforated lid and handle. Photo by the British Museum

European travellers in the later 1800s and early 1900s were interested in the little heaters they saw in the Far East. Some people called them “Japanese muff warmers” and recommended them for nursing and medical purposes. One Englishman bought one for his own winter outings and praised the:

…little stoves which the Japanese women put in their sleeves and obi [wide sash]. They are small enough to push up the sleeve of a [European] coat, and…will keep alight for four or five hours.
Walter Tyndale, Japan and the Japanese, 1910

Hakkin hand warmer
Hakukin-kairo invented in 1923 by Niichi Matoba who founded the Hakkin company. Photo by Pete.

These could be lit with a simple paper fuse in 1910, but it was not long before a modern version of the metal “box” hand warmer was introduced to Japan. It was ignited with platinum catalyst technology. The Hakkin hand warmer or kairo, invented in 1923, looks like a cousin of the cigarette lighter, but I like to think it was inspired by its older ancestors.

S. Maw, Son, & Sons

This English company’s Dainty Muff Warmer was by no means an important product. Maw’s had been dealing in surgical and pharmaceutical supplies from 1807 onwards. One of their early earthenware products was an inhaler (from the 1860s or before). By the early 1900s they were making ceramic foot warmers as well as hand warmers, and also baby feeders, toothpaste pots and more. The company name varied over the years. From 1901-1920 they were S. Maw, Son, & Sons of Aldersgate Street, London.

Photos

Photographers credited in captions. Links to originals and/or licenses:
German pocket warmer, Chinese warmer, Japanese warmer, Hakkin warmer, or see more picture info here.

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Boot scrapers

painted boot scraper
Simple scraper at Münster prison, Germany. Photo by Dave.

Who uses boot scrapers in the 21st century? Portable ones are on sale for gardeners, and for anyone else who wants to tackle muddy boots before approaching clean houses, cars, or paths. But the days of iron scrapers being placed at every door are over. The finest ornamental 19th century scrapers are still there beside elegant townhouses and country mansions. Scrapers have stayed on some smaller homes, especially where the scraper is embedded in the wall. Plain, functional scrapers sometimes remain by historic buildings.

Gone are the days of architects and builders planning for boot scrapers:

English boot scraper arch shape
Arch framing scraper set into wall - a design once used widely in England. This one is in Cambridge. Photo by Nick James.

Scrapers for the feet may be let into the wall of the cottage, on each side of the door, a cavity being left over the scraper for the foot, and one under it for the dirt. There are various forms of scrapers for building into walls, which may be had of every ironmonger; and all that the cottager has to do is to choose one analogous to the style of his house. There are detached scrapers in endless variety; the most complete are those which have brushes fixed on edge, on each side of the scraper…
An encyclopædia of cottage, farm, and villa architecture and furniture …John Claudius Loudon, London, 1839

Schools no longer put scrapers on their list of essentials:

The Scraper ….. the steps or platform leading to the door ….. either will be incomplete without a strong, convenient shoe scraper at each side. Two will be required, for the reason that the pupils enter the school, morning and afternoon, about the same time, and if there be only one scraper, it will either cause delay or compel some to enter the building with soiled shoes. Cleanliness and neatness are amongst the cardinal virtues of the school-room ; and every means of inculcating and promoting them should receive the earliest and most constant attention.
JG Hodgins, The school house: its architecture, external and internal arrangements, Toronto, 1876

Canadian boot scraper
Old school in Winnipeg, Canada, with a long boot scraper for several children to use at once. Long scrapers were a typical school design. Photo by Per.

What we do have now are enthusiasts who just love old boot scrapers. Since these are often fixed into stone, they are best collected by photographers. One collection is mostly from the UK or US. Another is from Brussels where, says the introduction, scrapers used to be part of the etiquette and ritual for entering both public buildings and individual homes. A Toulouse “collector” has analysed local styles and named them: ram’s horns, fir-cones etc.

boot scraper railings
Scraper discreetly set at foot of steps with iron railings in New York. Photo by Kim Navarre.

When did boot scrapers arrive as a normal part of daily life? The first print references start mid-18th century, when they are simply called scrapers.* I haven’t seen any that go back as far as this, but am hoping a “collector” may know of one and add a comment – please. Foot scraper and shoe scraper are terms also used, but boot scraper is far the most common name.

portable boot scraper
Movable cast iron scraper with tray to catch dirt. Probably late Victorian. Photo by HomeThingsPast.

They attracted 19th century inventors with an eye on patenting newer, cleverer kinds of scraper: quite often combined with brushes. Some of these look useful, some don’t, but none has the elegance of the best architect-endorsed scrapers, chosen to suit the house they were protecting from mud. One design that stands out from the crowd is seen in New York  and Savannah, Georgia. By integrating the scraper into the railings it avoids the “afterthought” look of a shoe-cleaner that doesn’t suit the architectural style of the house, but it isn’t quite as obvious as a free-standing scraper. Did visitors know where they were supposed to clean their footwear?

 cast iron scraper in corner
Scraper with dragon head in Oxford on 1882 building. Photo by Barnaby S.

Specification of Works to be done in erecting and completely finishing a Villa….with all the necessary appurtenances [sic]….
Iron-founder…Provide cast-iron strong tray boot scrapers to front and back doorways.
Specification of Works required to be done in erecting and completely finishing a Pair Of Semi-detached Cottages….
Iron-founder….Fit up to each front door a neat iron knocker and a neat iron-pan scraper.
Practical specifications of works executed in architecture, civil and mechanical engineering, London, 1865

boot scrapers 19th century
US boot scraper and brush combinations patented in 1870s and 1880s. Called foot-scraper, boot-cleaner, and shoe scraper, and all portable.
Photos

Photographers credited in captions. Links to originals here:
White boot scraper, school boot scraper, arch scraper, scraper and railings, dragon scraper.
More picture info here

Notes

*Oxford English Dictionary cites Swift’s Directions to Servants 1745

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