These sugar cutters were once in the possession of Musselburgh Town Council. It is tempting to think that they were used in association with a set of toddy ladles, ceramic punch bowls and sugar tongs also in the possession of the council and dating from the middle 1820s.

This is a pair of steel tongs with semicircular blades on the end of hooked arms. The handle is sprung with a steel strip and one leg terminates in a clasp, the other having a lug. The hinged juncture of the legs is decorated with stamped impressions of thistles and concentric circles.

Until the end of the nineteenth century sugar from the West Indian plantations, once refined, was generally imported as a 'loaf', a large crystalline cone-shaped mass. They were usually about a foot tall and stood in the kitchen.  Cutters were developed to break pieces off the loaf. The pieces could then be crushed or be further trimmed to a usable size. This cutter was cleaned and conserved by Scottish Museum Council Conservation staff in 2001.