60/24/3

M. H. Sarsons (Manufacturer)

This is a curd breaker, used for cutting curd horizontally and vertically to hasten the escape of whey when making cheese. It has a long ash handle with a steel shaft, and a brass head with horizontal and vertical cutters. It has an embossed brass plate at the base of the handle which reads ‘M. H. Sarsons, Ironmonger, Aylesbury’. The curd breaker was used at the University of Reading’s Department of Dairying, when it was the Dairy Department at Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, 1888–1908.

1 curd breaker: wood, brass, steel

MERL miscellaneous note, Greta Bertram, 25 January 2013 – Objects 60/22–60/31 were all used by the ‘Department of Dairying’ at the University of Reading. The name of the department has changed several times over the years, as has its location. It began as the British Dairy Institute in 1888, and was based in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, until 1908. It later became the Department of Dairying and was based at the Shinfield Estate in Reading, which was purchased by the University in 1921. In 1982 it became the Dairy Unit of the Department of Food Sciences on the Whiteknights Campus in Reading. See ’The University of Reading, Department of Dairying, the history of an unusual university department over its first hundred years’ by James Rothwell for full details. A memo from Margaret Fuller at MERL to Miss A. Sheppard at the Department of Dairying in 1960 asks whether the three curd breakers (60/24/1–3), a wooden skimmer (annotated by Miss Sheppard as being a ‘butter scoop’) (60/25) and a large coopered item (annotated by Miss Sheppard as being a ‘Cheshire cheese mould’) (60/23) were used in the Department. Miss Sheppard has annotated that ‘all were used in the department when at Aylesbury between 1888–1908’., MERL ‘History Artefacts’ card – ‘Description: A long handled curd breaker with an ash handle joined to a central steel shaft by brass mountings. The paddle is V-shaped at the top and there are two vertical brass cutters on either side of the central shaft. Each cutter is between 5.0–5.5cm apart. The horizontal cutters are 3.0cm apart and there are 10 in the middle and 9 at the sides. Two wooden knobs at the bottom act as feet and protect the breaker when in use. // Use: To cut the curd horizontally and vertically into even sized pieces to hasten the escape of the whey.’

Aylesbury

1875-01-01 - 1899-12-31

Late-nineteenth century

Wood, ash, Metal, brass, Metal, steel