The Scottish Mountain Heritage Collection
214.2008.1
Cornelius Whitehouse Ice hammer
21/10/2008
Hermione Cooper
21/10/2008
Cornelius Whitehouse Ice Hammer. Wooden shaft with metal around base. Square hammer, serrated pick. Pointed spike on ferrule with four flat sides.
wood, metal
Shaft & ferrule 33.5(l) x 10(cir)cms. Head 21(l) cms. Hammer 2.5(w)cms.
1
On one side of head ↑ and > then ↑44. In a rectangular box "CORNELIUS WHITEHOUSE & SONS LTD ( )"
brown
Whitehouse & sons Ltd
Bit of a curio this one as it looks, for all the world, like a Stubai ice hammer(see related items) though it seems to have been made by Cornelius Whitehouse & Sons Ltd. They were toolmakers based just outside Birmingham and specialized in making things like; augers, adzes, miner's tools, hatchets and chisels. They exhibited many of these items in the 1937 British Industries Fair and took out a patent in 1943 for improvements in the way that wooden shafted tools were attached to their metal heads - we wonder if that patent is employed in our hammer!
It's almost certain that a load of these hammers were made to order on some sort of Ministry of Defence contract and the MOD markings on the head would lend some credence to that theory. We are not sure if the 44 on the head is a date, i.e. 1944 or a code, though 1944 is a bit early for this kind of hammer - more like 1954. There is an archive of Cornelius Whitehouse & Sons in the National Archive at Kew 380/MD/102. Maybe the answer is there.
Sadly, we don't know where this hammer came from, though it was probably bought as ex-army surplus somewhere along the line and appears to have been shortened at some stage. It's got character- that's for sure.
21/10/2008
rusting
28/04/2009
Spectrum : UK Museum documentation standard, V.3.1 2007
28/04/2009