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This bone splitter, with a wooden handle, was used to split straws into splints for making fine straw plait. Until the nineteenth century this task was performed with a sharp knife. The point of the splitter was thrust down the straw pipe and the cutters separated it into equal sized splints. This splitter was used in the nineteenth century by Hannah Freeman of Finchingfield, Essex, who made straw plait for the hat industry.

1 splitter; wood & bone; good condition

MERL 'Handwritten accession' form (Museum of English Rural Life) – 'Standard museum name: … // Accession number: … // Classification: … // Negative number: … // Acquisition method: … // Acquired from: … // Date: … // Store: … // Condition: … // Recorder: … // Date: … // Description: Wooden shaft, with bone at top carved with 10 leafs, and a point at the front. // Dimensions: length 12.9cm. Width of wood at widest point 0.9cm. Length of bone 1.5cm. Height of bone 1cm. // Associated information: Given to Miss Fitzrandolph in 1922/3 by Miss Hannah Freeman, The Church, Finchingfold, Essex. Miss Freeman had worked at straw plaiting for the hat trade. // (1) Until the war period it had been customary to plait with whole straws, which gave a very crude product… The more direct and successful method was adopted of splitting straws to obtain a finer medium… It is not long before a special tool – the straw splitter – is described: this is done very confidently by Briggs as two kinds of splitters. The first were made of bone by French prisoners of war at Yaxley barracks; these were very successful but cost from one to two guineas each. The second was made of iron, Janes, a blacksmith at Dunstable, being the inventor… The splitters were quite small, being only 4 or 5 inches in length, and as they were quite simple tools to make, the price dropped very quickly to a few pence… The significant point is that the splitter was introduced at the time when the expansion of the industry was at its greatest, which was, of course, the time when the Italian supplies were cut off. The splitter was of great value, as it gave a finer medium and made possible a narrower plait. // References: (1) A History of the Straw Hat Industry: John G. Dony, Ph.D, (Gibbs, Bamforth & Co. (Luton) Ltd.).’, Letter, Helen Fitzrandolph to MERL, 1960 – ‘I made a survey of Rural Industries many years ago for the Agricultural Economics Research Institute at Oxford. // In the course of it I was given this tool for splitting straws. The owner was an elderly woman who had worked at straw-plaiting for the hat trade. // I hope you will accept the tool for your museum. It was given to me in 1922 or 1923 by:– // Miss Hannah Freeman, The Church. Finchingfold Essex. // It may be Finchingfield, but my record says Finchingfold.’

1800-01-01 - 1899-12-31

Nineteenth century