There can seldom have been a time in British history when the good things in life were more appreciated than in the Victorian era. From industrial exhibitions to shooting and racing parties and from dining dubs to home entertainment, the Victorians were the masters of self indulgence. They were innovators, developers, engineers, writers, educators and scholars. To use a classical idiom, they felt themselves the union of Sky Father and Earth Mother whose children are proverbially wealthy - the 'Tantalus Talenta' or as rich as Croesus.

Who or what were these 'Tantalus Talenta'? Well, my classical education tells me that a talentum was a large sum, of money, and the Oxford English Dictionary Of 1933 states that Tantalus was 1. 'The name of a mythical King of Phrygia', and 2. 'A stand containing usually three decanters which, though apparently free, cannot be withdrawn until the grooved bar which engages the stoppers has been removed. 1898'. So how I wondered could two so diverse definitions of a word have the same root?

Tantalus was son of Zeus by Pluto: all traditions agree that he was enormously wealthy and the king of either Corinth or Phrygia. The common account in Odyssey is that Zeus invited him to his table and communicated his divine counsels to him, that Tantalus divulged the secrets entrusted to him and that the Gods punished him for it. He was condemned to the nether world where there was a lake from which he could not drink when ' was thirsty, the waters always withdrawing when he stooped. Branches laden with fruit hung over his head but when he stretched out his hand to pick the fruit, it also withdrew. Above his head moreover, was suspended a huge rock ever threatening to crush him. In other words he was tantalised by the food and drink he could see but could neither touch nor taste. As for the second definition: in 1885 George Betjemann used the words 'my tantalus' in his patent for a lock up spirit and liqueur stand, which had a circular turning base for use on a dinner table. But the story begins long before ...

Until the licensing act of 1860, wines and spirits were sold loose, so a container of some description had to be taken to the retailer to be filled. During the seventeenth century claret jugs were used at table and in the 1690's George Ravenscroft produced the first decanters. These were in fact large jugs with stoppers sometimes in a cruciform shape to keep the wine cool, and from this time decanters began to replace bottles at table. In 1715 a decanter was described as 'a bottle made of clear flint glass for the holding of wine', and in 1755 the redoubtable Dr. Johnson called it 'a glass vessel made for pouring off liquor clear from the lees'. Being a professional, he would know! In 1745 the Glass Excise Act imposed punitive taxes on all glassware manufactured in England and the ensuing contraction of the glass industry had two major repercussions. The first was an increasing reliance on Bohemian glass. Travellers undertaking the grand tour of Europe during the second half of the eighteenth century, became familiar with this glassware by way of trinkets and, more importantly for scent and drink. These last two items, because of their expense, were stored in bottles and decanters which, in turn, were locked into bespoke travelling boxes to prevent breakages and pilfering on route.

The second repercussion was that English glassmakers who had resettled in Ireland in 1780 to avoid the Class Excise Act, could now sell more and better quality glass to England, tax free, as a result 'of Britain's free trade policy! In 1780 George and William Penrose started the Waterford Glass Co. and in the same year, glassmakers, settling in Cork and Belfast, started to produce quality glassware for businesses such as Blades and Ackerman, the Harrods of their day Decoration of decanters at this time was by acid etching and became increasingly more ornate, so much so, that the level of the contents in decanters could not be marked to prevent the appreciative 'palates of the servants indulging themselves. To overcome the problem and copying the Bohemian idea, Waterford made large lockable sideboard stands, called 'squares', to hold three or four impressively decorated decanters. These were pieces of furniture in their own right for, like the travelling boxes, they also contained games and gambling equipment: truly a gentleman's delight. The trouble was that these stands hid the beauty and the craftsmanship of the glass, except when the decanters were in use.

The increasing consumption of spirits in homes led to the necessity of protecting a decanter's contents from the servants, while leaving on display the ostentatious cut of the crystal for visitors to admire. From this dual requirement, came what was to be called the 'Tantalus' or "The Butler's Enemy', first shown at the Great Exhibition in 1851. You could look but you could not touch. It was a simple cabinet, open at the front, containing three small decanters secured by, a small hinged and lockable gate. This type became known as the fall front liqueur cabinet, and was soon adapted for all sorts of commodities' tea, biscuits' perfumes and patent medicines. When the introduction of electroplating by G.W. Eikington made cheap silverware possible to produce, sales of silver plated decanter holders escalated. Next, the abolition of the glass tax in, 1845 not only contributed to this increase in sales, but also permitted thicker glass and deeper cut designs. The trade entered its finest era. In 1860, there appears the first record of a 'Tantalus' made in Stourbridge. It was probably made to carry sample decanters, being little more than an oak tray with a retaining' handle and a low drop front. The frame was only 7 inches long and the decanters 5 inches high, but it was the criterion for all future development of the tantalus.

Where the word Tantalus appears, the name of Betjemann (in due course the family dropped the second 'n') will not be far away. The family, of which the poet John was a member had been making beds and cabinets in London since the 1840's but from 1853 they appeared to concentrate on boxes, tables and objects for the study. A succession of patents for 1 things like book slides, inkstands and library sets were taken out and then they progressed to dressing cases, jewel cases, games boxes and portmanteaus. The Victorians appeared to see villains behind every chair: if it was possible to lock something, they locked it, so it was only a Betjemanns turned their attention to the butler's enemy. Sure enough in 1878 they patented a locking liquor container in which a rod or bar passed over the decanters, which pivoted at either end and was locked by a double action Bramah lock. The actual patent states in all simplicity, 'In which a spring bolt is capable of being moved by moving the nozzle of such lock whilst such bolt is capable of being locked by a key, as is well understood'. Well a civil servant could understand it! - This invention, where the carrying handle pivots and locks was called the swing bar liquor frame and in 1885 called 'my Tantalus' by Betjemann. From that date, the company continually refined its patents for the tantalus, cigar boxes and other items such as, in 1908, 'lockable toilet paper containers', in 1913 'fountain pens' and in 1923 'a device for holding golf balls during painting'. The mind begins to boggle - no wonder people turned to drink!

By 1899, the majority of tantalus were made of mahogany or oak and held two or three hob-nailed decanters with many faceted ball stoppers. The wooden frames were ornamented with electroplated silver corner pieces, top bar, lock and matching handle. They have scarcely changed to this day. The tantalus we build in our Suffolk workshops are made with exactly the same care attention as were those manufactured by our forebears. Our standard models are made of solid mahogany, but other woods are available !o special order, There is a choice of brass or silver plated fittings (the locking mechanism being almost identical to the original Betjemann patent), and we equip them with the finest quality cut crystal decanters from Stourbridge.