Sugar has been used for thousands of years but was only brought to Europe in the 11th century by soldiers returning from the crusades in what is today the Middle East. The Portuguese immigrants to Brazil in the 1500 and 1600s with the use of enslaved Africans began to produce it commercially.
In the middle and latter part of the eighteenth-century sugar production by the British merchants in the Caribbean again using African slaves increased. Requests for sugar increased so much that a vessel made of silver to serve such a delicacy was born. Whilst the earliest English silver caster was made in 1658, they are rather unusual until the demanding increased so much that by the 1690s specialist silversmiths who only made casters such as Christopher Canner were busily employed. These makers took on apprentices and the early to middle eighteenth century had several specialists including Charles Adam, Samuel Welder, and probably the most prolific Samuel Wood.
By the late 1770s the use of sugar casters started to wane but was back in fashion again by the 1880s. The usual way of serving sugar by the 1780s was to use a pierced ladle (sugar sifting spoon) from a swing handled small basket (sugar basket) which normally came with the new style tea services and then from around 1800 the two handled sugar bowl.
At William Walter Antiques we have a fine selection of sugar casters of all styles and shapes from the earliest period right up to the 20th century.
