The Charles Hull Royal Club


“I’ve finally got a Royal Club!” So rings out the happy words of a dedicated corkscrew collector in a corkscrew chat room I visited recently. The Royal Club, is indeed the jewel in many a corkscrew collector’s crown and one for which they may have had to save a long time. Unlike many collectibles traded today, corkscrews rarely exceed the £1000 mark and are a popular collectible by virtue of the fact that most of the items sought out by collectors can be found for around £100. However, on 3 May 2000, Chistie’s of London sold an 1864 Royal Club corkscrew for £3,290 ($5254) to a private collector. This was a perfect example of these celebrated roller-type single lever corkscrews made by the English pewter maker Charles Hull.

Charles Hull was one of the most celebrated pewter manufacturers of the eighteenth century. His ancestors had been pewter craftsmen from at least 1451, when they are first mentioned in the records of the Worshipful Company of Pewterers. Mr Hull set up a small pewter workshop in Gloucestershire with his brother, making privately commissioned pieces. In the seventeenth century the site of pewter bowls, plates, spoons, candlesticks, toys and butts were common in almost every house in Britain. This alloy of tin had been used since Roman times and was the perfect material for making household items. The Hull brothers also worked with steel and experimented with designs for a sophisticated corkscrew. Charles Hull is recorded as having patented two versions of corkscrew in 1864, both of which are effective mechanisms and stylish pieces of design. The Royal Club was almost all pewter but it sported a helix that was raised by a single lever working against a brass wheel fixed to the top of the open frame. The basic shape is roughly like the shape of a modern tap with a long, curved spout. The purchase arm below the neck ring had an oval brass tablet with a Royal Coat of Arms above the wording, ‘C. Hull Patentee, Birmingham Royal Club Corkscrew’.