Butcher's tool case (non-Sainsbury's)

Home-made, rectangular, varnished wooden case. The case has a hinged lid which can be fastened shut using two lockable metal clasps. It is lined with a green synthetic textile and is divided up into compartments designed specifically to hold the contents in place.

The case contains six wooden handled steel butchery implements: a steak knife, a cooked meat knife, a boning knife, a gammon knife, a carving fork and a butcher's steel. It also contains a white plastic scraper and would originally have held a butcher's saw, the imprint of which can be seen on the inside of the case lid.

The case belonged to Mr C.E. Rowsell who joined Sainsbury's in the 1920s, signed up for the Navy in World War Two, worked as an independent butcher in the 1940s and 1950s, and then became a demonstration butcher. The implements are not those that he would have used while working for Sainsbury's