Object Record
Images
Metadata
Object ID # |
1961.038.023 |
Object Name |
Cutter, Sugar |
Title |
Sugar Shears |
Lexicon category |
4: T&E For Materials |
Date |
19th-century |
Made |
Unknown |
Place of Origin |
Great Britain? |
Description |
Household metal sugar shears (sugar cutter) mounted on a rectangular, finished brown wooden base with moulded top corners. A curved, tang-like iron piece rests in the mid-section on the top of the base. The fulcrum area is supported by a fancy brass post that has a turned look to it. An iron-shanked handle ends with a darkly-finished wooden grip knob that has one deep incised ring and two fine incised rings. The working end has two shaped iron blade "jaws" for cutting the sugar. The underside has two holes exposing the hardware holding the metal to the mount. No maker's identification is seen. |
Makers mark |
None |
Provenance |
Very likely from the 19th-century. It belonged to the Rixon or Ainslie family of Leith, Grey County. The last owner, Eleanor Rixon (d. 1973), lived at 894 5th Avenue East, Owen Sound, Grey County, where her parents had moved to in the late 19th-century. Her father, Henry Rixon, emigrated from England in 1860. Her mother Helen (née Ainslie), was a daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Adam Ainslie of Leith (they later moved to Owen Sound and lived with or near the Rixons). Adam Ainslie had emigrated from Scotland prior to 1846, as he married his wife, Isabelle Miller, at Galt, Upper Canada that year. The Ainslies moved to the Leith area of Sydenham Township, Grey County in the 1850s, and were somewhat well-to-do, as Mr. Ainslie had been a barrister and Reeve at Galt, and for a while he owned the Leith Distillery. In the 1880s, they moved to Owen Sound with the Rixons. In 1896 [year Miss Rixon said, likely was 1897 though], Mr. Ainslie died at the home of his son-in-law, Mr. Henry Rixon, in Owen Sound, Grey County. The Rixon sisters told museum staff that Adam Ainslie was Scottish. Andrew Armitage says in his article "Dock a Relic of Busy Village", SUN-TIMES, Owen Sound, Friday August 7, 2009, Page A5: "Born in Haddingtonshire, England in 1807, Ainslie became a lawyer at the age of 19. He practiced his profession at Gibraltar for a decade before quitting the Rock to come to Canada in 1834. Galt was his first stop and there he prospered. The very model of a Canadian gentleman, an actor, poet, politician and barrister." Armitage mentions how Ainslie oversaw the building of a wharf at Leith in Sydenham. It was completed in the summer of 1861. The Rixon burial plot is at Leith Cemetery, in the former Sydenham Township, and includes the following: William Augustus Rixon (b. 1869-d. 1892) Henry Rixon (father) 1838-1920 Helen Rixon (mother) 1847-1913 Ada A. Rixon 1874-1894 Ella A. Rixon 1871-1918 Alex A. Ainslie 1850-1887 Adam Ainslie 1807-1897 Isabella Ainslie 1828-1918 John Ainslie 1858-1923 Laura Rixon 1876-1963 Eleanor Rixon Dec. 27, 1973 William M. Burr 1861-1931 Frank Broderick 1856-1915 J. Jane Broderick 1867-1933 F. Rixon Broderick 1895-1958 |
Collection |
Food Processing Tools & Equipment |
Material |
Wood/Metal/Iron/Finish/Brass |
Dimensions |
H-15.8 W-31.5 L-8.2 cm |
Found |
Owen Sound, Grey County |
People |
Rixon, Henry Ainslie, Adam Ainslie, Isabella Rixon, Helen Rixon, Eleanor |
Subjects |
Sugar |
Search Terms |
Leith (Village of) |
Function |
In the 19th-century sugar cutters were used to cut small chunk of sugar off a large cone of sugar (how sugar was sold during this time). |