Oldest corkscrew

The earliest documented corkscrew is a French cage-style steel model dated to 1685, however many believe that the corkscrew is actually an English invention, since corks were widely used to stopper bottles of cider and beer long before then. Indeed, the first written reference to a corkscrew in English dates to 1681. Samuel Henshall - the rector of London’s Bow Church - filed the first corkscrew patent on 24 August 1795 for what would become known as the "Henshall button corkscrew".

The Henshall button corkscrew was manufactured by Matthew Boulton, who described the invention as "A new mode of applying the screw, and a mode which every person who sees it will be surprised that he himself did not find out. It will have the power to extract the hardest, tightest or most decayed cork."

Henshall's patent was not to lead to his fortune, as the rector seems to have been plagued by financial difficulties and lawsuits. Henshall and Boulton had a falling out over monies paid for securing the patent; as Boulton later dryly remarked: "“I doubt I shall not so easily extract £50 from the Parson as he would a cork from a bottle.“ Henshall died aged 42 in 1807 and was buried in the chancel at Bow Church - reputedly with his remaining stock of corkscrews taken with him to the grave!

An Irish corkscrew called “Read’s Coaxer,“ made by the famous Dublin cutler Thomas Read, has been attested to around 1790. Between the late 18th and early 20th centuries, almost 350 patents were issued for corkscrews in England alone — the so-called Thomason model, patented by the Birmingham manufacturer Sir Edward Thomason in 1802, being one of the most enduring styles. Another classic corkscrew is the Screwpull, designed by the American engineer and industrialist Herbert Allen in 1979. It differs from earlier models in its use of plastic and Teflon, which helps ease the cork out of the bottle.