This is a response to Robin Gabriel's query concerning the history of the
monteith.  The following is excerpted from the book, English Silver At
Williamsburg, by senior curator of metals, John Davis,

     " The monteith first appears in English silver in the late seventeenth
century. The earliest literary mention of this form is by Anthony a' Wood,
the Oxfgord diarist, who noted in December, 1683:

          This yeare in the summer time came up a vessel or bason
          notched at the brims to let drinking glasses hang there by
          the foot so that the body or drinking place might hang in
          the water to coole them. Such a bason was called a
          'Monteigh' from a fantastical Scot called 'Monsieur
          Montiegh,' who at that time or a little before wore the
           bottome of his cloake or coate so notched UUUU.

Nathaniel Bailey, in his Dictionary Britannicum (London, 1730), ascribes the
same function to the form as Wood.  He defines a montieth as "a scalloped
Bason to coole Glasses in."  Perhaps reflecting a change in use by which time
montieths has declined in favor, Samuel Johnson, in his DDictionary of the
English Language (London, 1775), describes a montieth as " A vessel in which
glasses are washed."  He includes the following couplet from William King's
Art of Cookery, In Imitation of Horace's Art of Poetry (London, 1708):

                     New things produce new words, and thus
                             Monteith
                      has by one vessel sav'd his Name from Death.

                                          -English Silver at Williamsburg,
pps. 42-44

I hope that this has answered your question Robin. By the way, John Davis
will be up at Monticello in November to present a lecture on Thomas Jefferson
& Sheffield Plate. I know that you will enjoy meeting him!

Dave


David Harvey
Conservator of Metals & Arms
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
P.O. Box 1776
Williamsburg , VA 23187-1776  USA
voice:     804-220-7039
e-mail:  [log in to unmask]