Prior to the invention of the ice cream cone or cornet, the penny lick was the container in which ice cream was sold in Great Britain and elsewhere at the seaside and in the streets of towns and cities, for one penny. The ice cream was licked out and the glass returned to the vendor, who used it for the next buyer, frequently without cleaning it.^[1]

The bowl is solid glass almost to the top, giving the impression that it was full when in reality it contained rather little ice cream. Added to the lack of pasteurisation of the ice cream’s basic ingredients – eggs, milk and cream – this unhygenic method of serving was responsible for the spread of diseases such as cholera and tuberculosis.^[1][2]

Health concerns resulted in penny licks being banned from the streets of London in 1898.^[3] In 1902 Antonio Valvona, an Italian living in Ancoats, Manchester was the first to patent a machine to produce the edible ice cream cones so familiar today.^[4] Although the use of penny licks lingered on into the early 20th century,^[5] they were gradually replaced by edible cones, and were finally banned in England in the 1920s.^[1]