Butler’s Branding Irons

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29384, 10 December 1960, Page 3

Butler’s Branding Irons

[To the Editor of “The Press”] Sir, — The special article, “When Butler’s Branding Irons Were Found” in your last Saturday’s issue contains a misleading reference to Butler’s candlestick branding iron now at St. John’s College, Cambridge, and in fairness to the college this reference should be publicly corrected. Your contributor writes: “Some years later, L. G. D. Acland saw it there, not as we found it thick with congealed black paint, but unfortunately scraped and polished.”

During the Canterbury Centennial Celebrations in 1950, the branding iron which was photographed for your article was exhibited in the Canterbury Museum, and at that time I was told by someone or other that its counterpart at St~, John’s College had there, been polished and chromium plated. I did not believe this story, but I took a photograph of our locally-owned branding iron with me to St. John’s College in 1953, and was able to make a detailed comparison. The branding iron at St. John’s was in its original box, with original wrappings and New* Zealand stamps, and appeared to be exactly as received from New Zealand by Henry Festing Jones, who gave it to the college. The iron was thick with black congealed paint, or tarry substance, and had been neither scraped nor polished. The box was well lined with cotton wool or similar material. The iron is certainly more “original” looking than the local one in the sense that it has a thicker encrustation of paint. Possibly Jones may have washed or rubbed it a little, but I think not, because I paid particular attention to the condition of the surface.

A feasible explanation of your contributor’s account is that the late Mr Acland made some reference to the scrupulous care taken by the college in preserving the branding iron, and that this reference has become misunderstood over a period of years. The whole business would have delighted Butler. But in fairness to St. John’s College, the growth of this myth must be firmly stopped. A. C. BRASSINGTON. December 5, 1960.