Mineral water bottle, P Burns, Dockhead, Dumfries

During the second half of the nineteenth century, many new methods of closure for glass bottles were suggested, but the most successful was that of British soft drink maker Hiram Codd of Camberwell, who in 1872 designed and patented a bottle specifically for carbonated drinks.   His design, known as the Codd-neck bottle, consisted of a glass marble and a rubber washer which was held in the neck of the bottle by the pressure of the gas in the drink, sealing in the carbonation and preventing the drink from going flat. Each customer was given a wooden cap and plunger which they used to force the marble down into the bottle, where it became trapped between two lugs constructed in the neck. This prevented the marble from blocking the neck as the drink was poured.   Children often smashed the bottles to get the marbles, and in an attempt to stop this, Codd took out a patent which used an oval marble to make it less attractive.   The bottles were popular for many decades, but their use declined in the 1930s.    This mineral water bottle, manufactured by P Burns, Dockhead, Dumfries, is an example of the Codd-neck bottles which were popular during the nineteenth century.