A coal scuttle, sometimes spelled ''coalscuttle'' and also called a ''hod'', "coal bucket", or "coal pail", is a

bucket A bucket is typically a watertight, vertical cylinder or truncated cone or square, with an open top and a flat bottom, attached to a semicircular carrying handle called the ''bail''. A bucket is usually an open-top container. In contrast, a p ...

-like

container A container is any receptacle or enclosure for holding a product used in storage, packaging, and transportation, including shipping. Things kept inside of a container are protected on several sides by being inside of its structure. The term ...

for holding a small, intermediate supply of

coal Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as stratum, rock strata called coal seams. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other Chemical element, elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen ...

convenient to an indoor coal-fired stove or heater.

Description

Coal scuttles are usually made of metal and shaped as a vertical

cylinder A cylinder (from ) has traditionally been a three-dimensional solid, one of the most basic of curvilinear geometric shapes. In elementary geometry, it is considered a prism with a circle as its base. A cylinder may also be defined as an infi ...

or truncated

cone A cone is a three-dimensional geometric shape that tapers smoothly from a flat base (frequently, though not necessarily, circular) to a point called the apex or vertex. A cone is formed by a set of line segments, half-lines, or lines co ...

, with the open top slanted for pouring coal on a fire. It may have one or two handles. Homes that do not use coal sometimes use a coal scuttle decoratively.

Origin

The word ''scuttle'' comes, via Middle English and Old English, from the Latin word ''scutulla'', meaning "serving platter". An alternative name, ''hod'', derives from the Old French ''hotte'', meaning basket to carry on the back', apparently from Frankish *hotta or some other Germanic source (compare Middle High German hotze 'cradle')", and is also used in reference to boxes used to carry bricks or other construction materials.

Infamous use

In 1917, the Swedish serial killer

Hilda Nilsson Hilda Nilsson (24 May 1876 – 10 August 1917) was a Swedish serial killer from Helsingborg who became known as "the angel maker on Bruks Street". She is one of Sweden's most notorious female serial killers. In 1917, she was imprisoned for murd ...

used a coal scuttle, a large bucket, and a washboard to drown children that she had been hired to care for. The infamous German

Stahlhelm The ''Stahlhelm'' () is a German military steel combat helmet intended to provide protection against shrapnel and fragments of grenades. The term ''Stahlhelm'' refers both to a generic steel helmet and more specifically to the distinctive Germa ...

, or Steel Helmet, is sometimes referred to in English-language publications as the "Coal Scuttle" helmet, due to its shape resembling that of a coal scuttle.

References

{{reflist Coal Containers