"Somebody forgot the corkscrew and for several days we had to live on nothing but food and water."
W. C. Fields, comedian and actor
In 1795 the Reverend Samuell Henshall of Oxford, England, took the end of a gun worm—a steel, helix- tipped tool used for removing wadding and unspent charges from musket muzzles—and attached it to a wooden handle: he had invented the modern corkscrew. Between the handle and worm he added a unique concave button, designed to compress the cork. A series of ribbed protrusions on the underside of the button engaged the cork, breaking its adhesion to the bottle and preventing the cork from fraying. This so-called "Henshall button" also prevented the helical gun worm from penetrating too far into the cork. The corkscrew was manufactured in Birmingham by Michael Boulton, with the Latin phrase obstando promoves soho patent meaning "by standing firm one makes advancement," inscribed on each button.
The latter half of the eighteenth century had seen refinements in glassblowing techniques and the bottle had evolved. Rudimentary, squat designs, with tapered necks and protruding corks that were pulled out by hand, had given way to mass-produced bottles with long cylindrical necks, ready to be stacked on their sides for easy storage and transportation. To prevent leakage, tighter seals had become necessary. Corks were compressed prior to being inserted into the bottle and no longer protruded from the neck, and so the need arose for a device to remove the cork.
Although it is conceded that Henshall's design came decades after other attempts by gunsmiths and blacksmiths to make gun-worm "bottlescrews," these were far less sophisticated, were never patented, and all lacked Henshall's ingenious "button."
