We cannot all be masters.
Iago, Othello, Shakespeare
The highly skilled wet cooper (Latin, cuparius/cupa– cask) made barrels, casks, kegs and tuns for liquids, especially beer. A white cooper produced churns, tubs and pails for daily use and a dry cooper made barrels for flour, herring and gunpowder – think Gunpowder Plot, 1605. Casks are made in different sizes, each with a specific name and capacity; a barrel contains thirty-four gallons (1688), a firkin nine gallons (1803), a kilderkin eighteen gallons (1803) and so on. The advantage of a barrel over other containers is that it withstands harsh treatment, holds liquids without leaking, is easily stacked and can be transported by rolling. The craft is an ancient skill: barrels are depicted in Egyptian tomb paintings circa 2,960 BCE and were used in England from at least the Iron Age. The Romans transported wine in barrels.
Travelling coopers in 1806, paid piecework, cried for work in London and journeyed through the countryside carrying different sized hoops, iron rivets, wooden pegs and tools to make repairs. For an extra penny or two, they took on the work of a village carpenter; it was, after all, another form of wood working. A journeyman cooper could receive three to five shillings a day. King’s coopers were employed at custom houses to maintain the alcohol barrels.
Bristol apprentice indentures 1554–1646 itemise a cooper’s kit to include: addes (adze), howel, barge axe, hatchet, creves or croze which cut the groove (the eponymous croze) on the inside of a barrel, compass, wimble (brace), saw, jointer and lave (lathe). Many tools were similar to those used by carpenters, but others were specific to coopering e.g. a spokeshave and a knocker up, a bent iron bar poked through the bung hole to ram the top cask head into place. The only time a cooper used a measuring tool was to make the heads (the lids); all other measurements were by eye.