66/56/2

This grease horn is one of several given to the Museum by Emily Mullins, a Reading basketmaker. Grease horns were used for greasing the bodkin, a pointed basketry tool for making holes and opening up the weave, to make it slip more easily. This one is made from a white curved horn of a cow. The basketmaker would sit on his plank where he worked and tuck the horn between his thigh and the box seat, so that the horn was in easy reach but left both hands free for weaving.

1 cow horn: hollow; white

Miss Emily E. Mullins (1906–1967) was a basketmaker in Reading. Her family were basketmakers for at least five generations. Her father, William Mullins, had no sons and Emily chose to become a basketmaker and carry on the tradition. She ran a basketmaking business in Bath circa 1926–1939, and moved to London in 1940 where she made baskets for the war effort. Later, she moved to Reading where she took over her father’s job on his death at Cook’s Dairy and Farm Equipment Ltd., a basketmaking firm founded in 1760 by John Cook. Cook’s had premises at Market Place, Reading, and the workshop was at Silver Street, Reading. The Museum has an extensive collection of baskets and basketmaking tools (approximately 200) given to the Museum by Emily Mullins. No correspondence between the Museum and Emily Mullins was found in July 2012, and it is assumed from scraps of information (e.g. a note on the Adlib record for 63/61 which said that the 63/ baskets were made by Emily Mullins for the Museum and were therefore never used, and a note on the Adlib record for 64/147 which said that Emily Mullins made numerous baskets for the Museum in 1964) that the baskets were made by Emily Mullins at Cook’s Silver Street workshop and the tools were used by Emily Mullins at the same workshop., MERL 'Catalogue of baskets' form – 'NAME: GREASE-HORN // Acc. No.: 66/56/1–3 // Group: CRAFTS. WOOD BASKETS // Neg. no.: 60/8981 // Place of origin: Berkshire // Period in use: pre-1965 // DESCRIPTION // Materials: Cow horns // Shape and construction: The curved horn is filled with tallow. // Dimensions: a & b) 9” long c) 7” long // Use: The working sitting at his plank, tucks the horn between thigh & box-seat, thus leaving both hands free. He plunges the bodkin into the tallow to make it slip more easily into the work. // Dialect names: // Distribution: General // Additional notes: see 64/208'

1965

Cook's Dairy and Farm Equipment Ltd. ()
Wright, Dorothy (Recorder)