The Descendant of the Laptop

 

QUESTION: On one of my first trips to England, I enjoyed antiquing as I traveled the countryside. In a shop in the Cotswolds, I discovered an unusual box. It had a lid that opened a out into what looked like a sloping writing service. The dealer said it was a 19th-century writing box. This seemed odd to me as many people now do whatever correspondence they need to do on their laptop through Emails or by texting on their smartphone. When and where did these boxes originate and how long were they in use?

ANSWER: While most writing boxes date to the 19th century, they go back even further than that. Victorians carried these boxes with them on trips so they could write letters and postcards back home. When not traveling, many also used them in place of a desk. Essentially, they were the laptops of their day.

Writing boxes date back to the beginning of writing. During the Middle Ages, monks kept their writing materials in special boxes called scriptoriums. Eventually, they mounted these boxes on stands and later added  legs, creating the first desks for doing illuminated manuscripts. But the writing box, itself, survived into the early 20th century.

People used traveling desks or writing boxes throughout the 19th century. When opened, they offered a leathered or velvet slope and rested on a table or over compartments for holding stationery. More luxurious versions included a removable pen tray under which spare nibs and holders could be kept, and screw-top inkwells, usually of glass, on each side. Others offered secret drawers or compartments. 

Before usernames and passwords, professional men kept their valuable documents—deeds, ills, and private letters—in their writing boxes. They didn’t keep these at their desks and always kept them locked. The first writing-boxes like these were descendant from “bible-boxes” and came into being in the 1600s. 

During the second half of the 17th century, craftsmen began to make improvements to these the Bible box, creating a rectangular box with a sloping lid. Such boxes provided a ‘desk on the move’ for such people as merchants, members of the clergy and professional men of the turn of the 18th century. 

In the 18th century, drivers stacked squarish trunks and boxes on the backs of stagecoaches and carriages. A box with a slopping lid didn’t fit this arrangement, forcing passengers to carry it on their lap. 

Eventually, a creative cabinetmaker discovered that if he sliced a rectangle in half, diagonally, and moved the cutting-line so that it was slightly off, when he applied this to a box, he found  when the lid was opened and laid down flat, a complete, compact writing-slope could be created for anyone who wanted to use it. When business was done, the slope was simply folded up into a neat little box. This became the basic form of the writing box for the next 200 years.

Once the form of the writing box became standardized, it became quite common. Their practicality and portability allowed them to be carried on journeys, on long sea-voyages, on military campaigns, scientific and geographic expeditions and even for a trip out of town to visit the Duke for the weekend shooting-party. It was during this time that writing boxes became fine pieces of craftsmanship, handmade by cabinetmakers, carpenters and skilled artisans. They ranged from sturdy, utilitarian pieces with brass-edgings to protect the wooden corners from damage to fine top-of-the line models with inlaid decoration, brass handles, leather writing slopes and plenty of secret compartments.

Writing boxes carried everything a person needed to do business. Most people, however, used them for correspondence. Most included seals and sealing-wax, stamps, a couple of envelopes, notepaper, nibs or quills and a pen-shaft. All writing-boxes also had a dedicated slot or alcove where a sealed inkwell would sit. 

An essential part of any writing box was the glass ink bottles. Before fountain pens appeared around 1895, a dip-pen and inkwell was the only way to go. Before you could get ink that was bottled in safe, screw-top, leakproof bottles, a travelling inkwell, which had a lid that locked securely and a rubber or leather seal to prevent leakage, was the only ink supply you were likely to get. And with the dip-pen shaft came the little box of nibs or ‘pens’ as they were called then, that went with it. 

Their practicality and portability allowed them to be carried on journeys, on long sea voyages, on military campaigns, as well as scientific and geographic expeditions. 

Towards the middle of the 19th century, manufacturers produced wooden writing boxes in enormous quantities to meet a growing demand. They came in all sizes and varieties of wood, including mahogany, burr walnut, rosewood and the more expensive ones in Coromandel wood. Less expensive ones, usually made of thin pine or fruitwood, were a step above an elaborate school pencil box and often decorated with cheaper decals instead of inlay.. 

Makers produced each to various specifications, depending on the intended type and amount of use. An army officer posted to the northwest frontier, for example, would want one robustly built, heavily brass bound, with brass mounted corners and edges to withstand rough treatment. A Victorian lady, on the other hand, might have one made in Tunbridge ware (a type of English marquetry decoration from the spa town of Tunbridge Wells, England) or even papier mache. The more expensive ones had serpentine lids, sometimes inlaid with intricate designs in brass or a mother of pearl or a shield for the owner's initials.

Simpler tourist writing cases in Moroccan leather and lined with satin came equipped with different sizes of stationery, pens, pencils, and a paperknife, but not an inkwell.

The utility of an easily portable box to provide storage for writing materials and a surface on which to write eventually led to the continuing usage of a smaller and more compact box that became very popular in the late 18th century. Known as lap desks or writing slopes, these writing boxes were quite portable, so they could be held on a lap or used at a table. They came with lids, hinged at the front, that slanted upwards towards the back, opening to form a writing surface with only one compartment underneath for storage. 

Before the days of central heating, members of the family could gather by the fire and each work at his own small desk. A lap desk provided each individual with a private place in which to keep letters, paper and writing materials. In those days, ink, quills, paper, sand, wax wafers, and seals were all necessary equipment to use in writing a letter. 

The writing box enjoyed its greatest popularity in days when ladies and gentlemen kept detailed diaries and wrote many letters. Imagine a romantic novelist or poet using just such a box while working in the warmth of a cozy fire. Today, cell phones, laptops, and tablets have made writing boxes and even stationery obsolete. However, as decorative boxes, they're more sought after than ever.

To read more articles on antiques, please visit the Antiques Articles section of my Web site.  And to stay up to the minute on antiques and collectibles, please join the over 30,000 readers by following my free online magazine, #TheAntiquesAlmanac. Learn more about "The Age of Photography" in the 2023 Fall Edition, online now. And to read daily posts about unique objects from the past and their histories, like the #Antiques and More Collection on Facebook.