• Woodworkers have used chisels to cut and shape wood since Neolithic times, and designs have changed little over thousands of years. Most chisels have rectangular cross-sections, with the end ground to a square, sharp edge, and with a wooden handle. Gouges are chisels with a curved cross-section for cutting curves. This set is from a collection belonging to Gus Hatfield (1916-1981), whose name can be seen incised on many of the handles.
  • Among the countless small objects left behind in a supervisory office was this set of keys that once controlled access to clocks, cabinets and pumps. While unremarkable at the time they were photographed, a visual record of such basic workplace technology as it existed in the early twenty-first century and earlier might not be preserved were it not for the efforts of the Workers' History Museum and its volunteers.
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