Mousetrap

Londoners used wooden 'dead-fall' traps of this type to catch mice and other rodents. Until the middle of the nineteenth century the primary concern was the threat rodents posed to human food rather than to public health.

Traps like this one were cheap to buy and would have been in common household use. To lure the mouse inside bait would be attached to the chock on the end of the string. The string was connected to the lever mechanism. The chock would then be wedged into the slot on the side. This pulled the lever down which raised the block for the trap to be set. When the mouse ate the food it would either push the chock out through the slot or chew through the string. The lever would be released causing the block to fall. The weight of the block would crush the mouse.

'Dead-fall' traps had the disadvantage that they could only catch one mouse at a time. A variety of mouse traps were developed during the course of the nineteenth century with the modern, metal spring-loaded type appearing on the market in the 1890s.