The Skittish Library

Vintage Recipes – Brown Windsor Soup

Post author By Estelle
Post date July 16, 2015
2 Comments on Vintage Recipes – Brown Windsor Soup

Brown Windsor Soup – surely the stuff that the British Empire was built on? I know of it through Tony Hancock ordering it in an unappetising 1950s canteen, the Carry On team being served it for dinner it like unadventurous Brits in Carry on Abroad, and, well, in numerous other comedy settings from the 50s to the 70s. It’s famously the dull embodiment of dreary British cuisine and looks a bit like sludge. Although I can’t remember the ingredients ever being specified, I imagined it as a kind of thin, liquidised beef stew.

So it rather blew my mind to learn on Wikipedia that, in all likelihood, Brown Windsor Soup never actually existed as an actual, real thing from Victorian or Edwardian times. It was first included on the odd menu in the 1920s and 30s and thereafter apparently mainly used as a jokey kind of reference to terrible, dull British food.

Michael Quinion has investigated, and makes the claim that Brown Windsor Soup is first mentioned in print as late as 1943 – in the book The Fancy by Monica “great-granddaughter of Charles” Dickens. He has a few theories as to where the name came from. Firstly, there was White Windsor Soup, an undeniably real Victorian dish. Secondly, Brown Windsor Soap was also a definite, very famous, type of soap. And so there might have been some kind of confusion between these two items, or possibly a deliberate mashup of them both, for satirical purposes or otherwise.

I decided I wasn’t going to take Wikipedia’s word for this. I was going to uncover some true Brown Windsor Soup, as enjoyed by Queen Victoria. Wading through The British Newspaper Archive, the extensive search results that immediately popped up looked promising. However, on closer investigation, it was a quirk of the reading software of the Archive, which isn’t always entirely accurate on account of the age of the papers scanned, and the tiny typefaces that can be used. Every result referred to Brown Windsor Soap, not soup.

However. There is another type of Victorian soup that may have been the Brown Windsor in all but specific name – the vague-sounding “Brown Soup”.

In basic form, this could be “Beef Tea” – either in invalid cookery form or as a kind of Bovril drink, like this one, “Bouillon Fleet” from 1889:

Or here on this restaurant menu in 1890, which was probably a more substantial version:

And it was served as a starter at the New Year’s Dinner at a “Home for Old Men and Women” in Glasgow, 1895. This stereotypical Victorian menu consisted of brown soup, beef-steak pie and plum pudding.

Talking of pudding – look! A recipe for “Brown Windsor pudding” in 1897. It’s a spiced fruit steamed pudding which sounds gorgeous. I’m guessing that this was a reference to the aforementioned soap, which was also advertised as containing spices such as cinnamon. If there was spiced food based on the soap, then maybe “Brown Windsor Soup” should properly also be cinnamonned, gingered and cloved, a bit like Mulligatawny soup?

Here’s a 1913 recipe for brown soup. It’s made of beef and vegetables, but made extra brown with the addition of Bovril and browning. None more brown.

And one from 1916, with instructions on how to make the soup extra brown, by browning the flour in front of the fire.

The People's Journal, 4th November 1916 — The People’s Journal, 4th November 1916

And another one. It all sounds quite nice to me.

The first actual mention of “Brown Windsor soup” I found, on a Hartlepool menu from 1928. It was from Binns’ Restaurant – perhaps they invented it?

A 1928 recipe for Brown Soup here, using vermicelli to thicken, if wished.

Brown Windsor still being served at Binns’ in Hartlepool in 1931:

A prize-winning brown soup recipe from 1931. I suspect that the winner, Mrs G. Walker, had seen the “Everything That Is Good” recipe above, in 1928. Veeerry similar.

Windsor soup was finally commercially available in the 1940s. Batchelor’s version is here, although it wasn’t called “Brown”. Tinned foods were handy in wartime, it’s “A meal in itself” and could be heated “at the minimum of fuel cost”. Although “quantities are rather limited and a little patience may be needed,” in order to obtain some. Emphasizing its potential scarcity makes it sound more desirable, of course.

Finally, the last reference I found. Because The British Newspaper Archive only goes up to the mid-1950s, so far. I love the Britishness of the “If you must eat out…”

I wonder when the very last bowl of Brown Windsor soup was eaten? Maybe there are people still making it out there, although what their recipe is, who knows? I couldn’t find anything specifying what makes “Brown Soup” different from “Brown Windsor”, if there even is a difference. And so, now I feel the need to invent my own version – a very gently spiced, very brown, beefy, vegetabley kind of concoction. Watch this space.

Update – thanks to Steve in the comments below, who let me know that there was now a date of 1926 as the first reference on Wikipedia. This is it:

Portsmouth Evening News, 24th February 1926

And after some more research I’ve found a 1926 reference to Brown Windsor in Binns’, earlier than the 1928 version above. Still a few months later than the one in the Portsmouth Evening News though.

Tags brown soup, brown windsor soup, carry on films, food, The British Newspaper Archive, Tony Hancock, Vintage recipes

1900-1949 Women

Aunt Kate’s Postbag, 1916

Post author By Estelle
Post date July 12, 2015

I always love a problem page, and it doesn’t matter if it’s from the latest issue of a magazine or a publication 100 years ago. I’m not the only one – my post on a Victorian problem page still gets views every week.

So here’s another one, this time from 99 years ago. In the same tradition of the Victorian problem page, it consists of answers only. The actual questions are discreetly never mentioned – sometimes on such pages they’re obvious, but they can also be annoyingly impossible to figure out. The agony aunt here is “Aunt Kate” and she says (if she’s a real person) “if you are ever worried over anything or in difficulty, write to me, and I shall do my best to advise you.”

Dot had a couple of questions. The first was apparently to ask whether she might be able to get a job as a lady’s companion. Aunt Kate says no. Dot is too young for such a role, which involves being educated, capable and accomplished and an all-round housekeeper to boot. And, in any case, paid companions were becoming few and far between these days. Dot would do better to set her sights at secretarial or nursing work instead.

Dot’s second question involves her legs – the thinness of them, in particular. Aunt Kate dismisses this worry – “There is really no remedy for thin legs. As a matter of fact, most girls long to have thin legs. Why not wear boots with long uppers? These are the latest fashion, and would serve to make the legs a better shape.”

Iris – ah, I feel for Iris. She’s written in to ask how to manage her shyness. As I was a shy child myself, I recognise Aunt Kate’s advice as the same kind of thing I heard many times, from people who have no idea what it is to be shy. “Just get over it,” it boils down to. I had one teacher at school who was an outgoing, bouncing puppy of a man, and who had never experienced a moment’s shyness in his life, I’m sure. At the start of the year, he promised that anyone who started off shy in his class wouldn’t end up so. What he meant by this was that he would be loud at all times, put people on the spot with questions, and there would be a lot of interaction and role play exercises. Maybe this would help some people to miraculously eradicate any feelings of reserve, but I think that for many genuinely shy teenagers, this is actually close to your worst nightmare instead. I think that age is the best cure in the end, Clockwork-Orange-style.

Aunt Kate’s advice on shyness isn’t bad, it’s just easier said than done. I hope it helped Iris, anyway. “Dear child, you must try to fight down this shyness of which you complain. When in other people’s presence try not to be self-conscious – to imagine that all eyes are on you. Try to think about the other people in the room, and how you can make things more agreeable for them. If you are to cure yourself of shyness, go out amongst other people as much as possible, and very soon you will learn how to conduct yourself properly. Although you are only 16 you are not a bit too young to rid yourself of this complaint – the sooner the better!”

I wonder what “M.W” was asking for – it seems to refer to whether a certain type of institution existed in relation to looking after her child. Aunt Kate says that there is no such institution anyway, but that she could leave her child at a day nursery, enabling her to go to work. I get the impression there’s a sad and hard story lurking behind that one.

Tags 1916, problem page, shyness

1900-1949 Adverts Food & Drink

Bottoms Up the Workers, 1920

Post author By Estelle
Post date July 8, 2015

A protest against the Temperance movement in 1920. The advert is saying that the only real effect of an alcohol ban, as was seen in the US, would be to prevent the working class from accessing booze – those with money would always be able to pay their hands on it. I agree that “a sober working class” was, no doubt, desirable by those in charge.

And here’s a nice little picture of some members of the labour movement having fun – trade union delegates taking a break from the 1917 congress for a splash about on Blackpool beach. How great it would be if politicians did this at their party conferences now.

Tags 1917, 1920, advert, alcohol, prohibition, trade union

1900-1949 Women

The Dangers of Hobble Skirts, 1910

Post author By Estelle
Post date July 4, 2015

Dundee Evening Telegraph, 27th March 1911

Did you see the warning about skinny jeans the other day? There were news reports all over the place about it, with alerts on the dangers of “compartment syndrome” and that skinny jeans could be responsible for seriously damaging muscles and nerves in your legs. However, this is quite a good example of scientific stories being reported misleadingly in the popular press, as this top notch slapdown on the NHS Choices website makes clear – calling it “shameless clickbaiting” based on one (one!) case, which was seen in Australia.

NHS Choices says, excellently: “Many news sources covered this story. We suspect that this was because it gave them an excuse to carry photos of skinny-jean-wearing celebrities such as the Duchess of Cambridge. Call us cynical, but we doubt a case report involving anoraks or thermal underwear would generate the same level of coverage.”

Still, it’s not the first time that fashion has been held accountable for health hazards. I’ve previously looked at the mind-boggling mid-Victorian trend of walking with your back bent forward, known as the “Grecian Bend”. And today I’m going to look at the hullabaloo around the hobble skirt. The hobble skirt was a widely-ridiculed, yet very popular, fashion of the Edwardian, pre-First World War years – and really the War was pretty much responsible for ending the trend. It consisted of a long skirt, tied or narrowed tightly at some point from the knee down, and which resulted in the wearer having to “hobble” along while wearing it. I love the origin of this fashion – it is likely to have resulted from the latest technological development, the aeroplane. Designer Paul Poiret is credited for its invention, but he was probably influenced by Mrs. Hart O. Berg, who took a flight with Wilbur Wright in 1908, becoming the first American woman to fly as a passenger in a plane. In order to prevent her skirt billowing up in the air she tied a rope around it, which she kept on as she rather elegantly walked away afterwards.

Mrs Hart O. Berg and Wilbur Wright, 1908

A New Jersey judge in 1910 tried to define what the hobble skirt was, exactly. He called it “a pair of trousers with one leg”. This was an aside in a riotous-sounding trial of a schoolboy, charged with “smashing the straw hat of an elderly gentleman.” The defence for his actions was that “the season for straw hats had closed and summer headgear should not be worn in October.” To which the judge remarked that “public opinion might mould fashion, but not to the extent of employing violence. Public opinion might prescribe a hobble skirt for men, and then I suppose we should have to wear it. The hobble skirt would certainly look better on men than on women. It really is a pair of trousers with one leg.”

It caught on. It became the big new thing with women, seemingly confusing men in the process. In order to deal with this strange new fashion, widespread dismissal and scaremongering was the order of the day. Illinois and Texas even considered banning the hobble skirt in 1911, along with the “harem” skirt, which were long bloomers worn underneath.

There were pros and cons to the hobble. On the downside, the restricted movement could cause accidents. This article rather prematurely declares the hobble skirt dead in 1910, due to a series of accidents on the part of the wearers:

Dundee Evening Telegraph, 25th October 1910

And, in fact, trying to get over a stile in a hobble skirt apparently resulted in the sad death of Mrs Ethel Lindley in 1912. She slipped, broke her ankle and with the bone protruding through the skin, she still managed to walk ten yards towards a farm, but sadly she died shortly afterwards from septic poisoning and shock.

The implications of the fashion included the fact that less fabric was used in its manufacture, and there was a “crisis of yardage” – the earlier fashions involved dresses made from 14 to 19 yards of silk, whereas the new styles only took between 4 and 7 yards, with underskirts becoming almost obsolete and demand for petticoats much reduced.

The fall in the demand for underskirts also had this result – 1200 clothes factory girls in Northampton went on strike in 1911 as their sewing services were not so much needed and they were given other work, which they said did not allow them to earn a living wage.

Even the Pope got involved – the hobble skirt and cleavage-revealing dresses were condemned as “scandalous and corrupting”.

Dundee Evening Telegraph, 9th August 1911

But, it wasn’t all doom and gloom. “Medical men approve of women wearing tight skirts” says this headline, rather cheekily. The Chicago Medical Society decided they were “hygienic, artistic and comfortable, and that they correct bad walking.” Dr Arthur Reynolds explained that “American women think it stylish and pretty to turn their feet out at right angles while walking,” which was hard to do in a hobble skirt, and sounds painful and much more ridiculous than the tight skirt. Full skirts were also liable to become “germ-laden”.

Straight out of Monty Python, a joke about a hobble skirt “almost caused the death” of a Connecticut Judge in 1910. He saw his daughter wearing one and wisecracked that “a woman in a hobble is like a giraffe in a barrel.” He found his joke so funny that he couldn’t stop laughing, which developed into a ten-day bout of violent hiccups that apparently were life-threatening until “specialists…succeeded in reducing them to infrequent periods”. Lots of “self-appointed hiccough experts” tried to ease the judge’s suffering. I particularly like the bizarre advice of “sleeping on the bedroom door with the feet on the window sill.”

And “hobble skirt races” were held as a novelty instead of sack races:

Dundee Evening Telegraph, 7th September 1910

The reasons for its demise are discussed in this look back at the hobble skirt from the viewpoint of 1940. A suggestion had been made that fashion should be “standardised” for the duration of the Second World War, and this article reflects that had this been the case with the First World War, women might have remained wearing their hobble skirts much longer. As it was, war work meant that women’s fashions had to be practical above everything else – “Wider skirts, shorter skirts and shorter hair all came about through women’s need for greater freedom.” This was probably the biggest ever change to women’s position in society – “Women had become workers: they continued to work in the years which followed. If fashion had not been permitted to keep pace they would have had to shuffle instead of stride.”

Tags 1911, fashion, Hobble skirts, women

Victorian Women

Advice to Wives, 1895

Do you do anything deliberately that annoys you, for fun? I’m not sure why exactly, but getting aerated about some bugbear of yours, in a safe kind of way, is quite cathartic in the same way that crying can be.

It’s why I read the Daily Mail’s Sidebar of Shame and it’s why my husband watches “The Big Question” on a Sunday. We would be disappointed if suddenly either one was populated with reasonable points of view that coincided with our own.

And, being completely honest, it’s why I initially started researching old marital advice columns for an intermittent series I will be doing on the blog, and which started with this post. I was heartened to see that much of the advice was actually quite wise and even applicable now, sometimes with a bit of tweaking. But, yes, I was irrationally disappointed that huge swathes of outrageous archive sexism weren’t as widespread as I expected.

Apart from this one. It’s from the Isle of Man Times in 1895, and, you know, nothing against the Isle of Man and everything, but….

I’m a feminist. I would be a card-carrying one if that was possible and I don’t really understand why any woman wouldn’t identify as one, although I know some that don’t. It’s all about being treated equally to men, socially and economically, and I’m not sure why anybody wouldn’t want that for themselves. So this article is the Euro Millions jackpot for outraged feminism. I love it, while being sincerely glad I never met the author.

Although I rather suspect there’s more than a few individuals who might agree with its sentiments even today – just witness the experiences of various well-known women on Twitter these days. It’s so outrageous – “He’ll probably think you an idiot; but that’s inevitable anyway,” – that I couldn’t work out if it was actually serious. But the author anticipates this – “don’t think this is a Joak,” he tells us. I still can’t decide whether it really is, though. I suspect not – this was a topical issue, after all, and attitudes like this were no doubt why The National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies was founded two years later, in 1897.

A final note – I would rather like to see my husband’s face if I’d made some delicious hash for dinner, only to eat it myself and give him his own dinner of green turtle instead.

Advice to Wives

Don’t argue with your husband: do whatever he tells you and obey all his orders.

Don’t worry him for money, and don’t expect a new dress oftener than he offers to buy you one.

Don’t sit up till he comes home from the club; better be in bed, and pretend to be asleep. If you must be awake, seem to be glad that he came home so early. He’ll probably think you an idiot; but that’s inevitable anyway.

Don’t grumble at him because he takes no notice of baby; men weren’t built to take notice of baby.

Don’t mope and cry because you are ill, and don’t get any fun; the man goes out to get all the fun, and your laugh comes in when he gets home again and tells you about – some of it. As for being ill, women should never be ill.

Don’t be mad because he smokes in bed, and goes into the best room with his dirty boots: your’s is the only house in which he can do these things, and you mustn’t be disagreeable.

Don’t talk to him of his mother-in-law; he’ll like it better if you talk to him of yours.

Don’t give him hash for dinner, eat the hash yourself and get him green turtle and chicken.

Don’t answer back, don’t spend money on yourself, don’t expect him to push the perambulator, don’t expect him to do anything he doesn’t want to do, don’t do anything he doesn’t want you to do. Then if you’re not a happy woman, your husband will at least be comfortable, and his friends will all be mad with envy.

And don’t think this is a Joak. It isn’t; it’s gospel, and the only way to have a happy home.

Tags 1895, advice for wives, feminist, Isle of Man, The British Newspaper Archive, women

1900-1949 Food & Drink

German Invalid Cookery, 1922

Post author By Estelle
Post date June 29, 2015

Another peek at a book from the brilliant Forgotten Books website, and one which includes one of my favourite topics – the disappeared art of invalid cookery. This book, “The Art of German Cooking and Baking” by Mrs Lina Meier is a general cookbook from 1922. I like looking at the slight through-the-looking-glass effect of recipes from other countries with their different ingredients and food traditions.

Pre-NHS (in the UK), there were a lot of sick people being looked after in the home, and effective medicines for many diseases were either new or non-existent. If you look at any cookery book from Victorian times to pre-World War Two, you’ll find a chapter on “Invalid Cookery“, aimed to help those looking after sick loved ones, and designed to be appropriately nutritious and easily digestible. However, they are significantly different to what we might think of as food for sick people now. When I’m ill I want either Heinz Tomato Soup, toast and butter or my mum’s mashed potato. When I was a kid the upside to feeling ill was that it was the only time you could have Lucozade. It would have been weird to drink it while not ill in the 1970s. However, if anyone had tried to give me toast water or raw minced beef soaked in lukewarm water, I wouldn’t have considered that my first choice to settle my stomach.

Looking at the Invalid Cookery section, this doesn’t differ much from what was suggested for British invalids – a lot of beef tea and bouillons.

We’re getting on the train to crazy town now, though – with “Fried Calf’s Brain” and “Calf’s Tongue” being offered as suitable sickness foods. Also “macaroni” is classed as a vegetable for some reason.

Mmmm, invalid puddings. It starts off sensibly and recognisably with a kind of rice pudding, but quickly starts getting quite raw-eggy. “Chocolate Cream with Red Wine”, is a strange chocolately-wine cross between a jelly and an uncooked meringue. I object to “Beaten Egg” (ingredients – egg and salt) being classed as a “sweet dish”. Interestingly, there are strict instructions on where to beat the egg – “The egg should be beaten in a well-ventilated room only, because the air in the room influences the nourishment served to the invalid.”

There’s lots of “foam” recipes – “Red wine foam” on this page. Very cheffy, circa 2013. Ice cream “can often be given to invalids without harm”. I think I’ll pick that, please.

I can’t help noticing that invalids were expected to drink quite a lot of wine. It’s in nearly all the recipes. Here there’s the disgusting-sounding “Milk Lemonade” – water, sugar, milk, lemon juice and, of course, white wine. Even the ascetic-sounding “Water with Lemon Juice” contains sherry.

This is an interesting recipe – “Iron and Wine“. Iron deficiency was a big problem then, as it still is now. In fact, I recently read about a simple remedy to combat endemic anaemia seen in parts of the world today – an Iron fish which you add to your cooking pot, and which leaches out small amounts of iron into the food. In 1922, you could either have your Pink Pills for Pale People or you could cut to the chase and add iron filings directly into your wine, like the kind of reckless experiment I would have done with my chemistry set aged 9. Ignoring the iron, which I imagine would give the wine a bit of a bloody tang, wine with ginger and horseradish sounds pretty exciting.

More for the alcoholic invalid here – “White Wine Soup”, “Red Wine Soup” and “Beer Soup”.

“Cow Udder”, anyone?

Moving on from Invalid Cookery, some general baking now. The directions for “1 1/2 cents’ worth of yeast” in the ingredients didn’t make these recipes very time-proof.

Berliner pancakes, of John F. Kennedy fame:

I object to to this one – “English Cake“. It contains ammonia as a raising agent, not something I believe is traditional in English cookery, but is seen in German and Greek baking. Ammonia, though. Apparently, it smells as a raw ingredient but the aroma bakes off during cooking. I don’t think I’d chance it, to be honest – the fear of ending up with “Cat Litter Cake” would be too much.

“English Bride’s Cake” here – still the traditional wedding fruit cake.

I like this recipe for “natural” green food dye – soaking coffee beans in egg white to produce a green colour.

Finally, another “English” recipe – “English Chow Chow”, . It’s a kind of piccalilli, although I think the name “chow chow” only lives on in parts of the US now.

Tags 1922, Forgotten Books, German cookery, invalid cookery, Vintage recipes

1900-1949

King Papped, 1908

Post author By Estelle
Post date June 26, 2015

Nottingham Evening Post, 31st August 1908

Edward VII was not amused in 1908. He was “much annoyed on the promenade at Marienbad yesterday,” (Marienbad being in what’s now the Czech Republic) “when he discovered that cinematograph pictures of his early walk had been taken by the director of a Berlin cinematograph company.”

I wonder if this is the first time the Royal Family were “papped”?

“The man in question had succeeded in securing an excellent set of pictures before the King noticed his operations, but on the discovery being made, his Majesty took prompt measures….the King keenly resented such an intrusion on the privacy of his summer holiday.”

There’s a slightly sinister undertone as the cinematographer at first refuses to hand over the film to the police, but the King’s equerry, General Sir Stanley Clarke takes control of the situation. He visited the culprit’s hotel, and “what happened between the King’s equerry and the cinematograph operator is unknown, but General Sir Stanley Clarke finally left the hotel with all the cinematograph negatives in his possession, the operator having consented to surrender them to the King.”

Tags 1908, Edward VII, paparazzi

Victorian Women

The Shocking Ignorance of Young Ladies, 1843

Post author By Estelle
Post date June 24, 2015

Oh, the youth of today, they don’t know they’re born! Says every generation at some point. This is taken from Punch, so it’s not entirely serious, admittedly. It’s a follow-up to an article on “the amount of ignorance of domestic affairs prevailing among young men generally.” This one covers the ignorance of young ladies and is printed “at the risk of creating a fearful panic in the marriage market.”

I don’t know if this article is based on real interviews with young ladies, or even if these young ladies actually existed, but it sounds like it was based on reality to me, and it’s an entertaining read, nonetheless.

Firstly, there’s Miss Mary Anne Atkins. She “has an idea she ought to know something of housekeeping; supposes it comes naturally.” She can sing, play, draw and embroider, but she’s never darned a stocking. She knows how much Brown Windsor Soap is, but not the yellow variety. She doesn’t know how much furniture is (and why should she really?) – she “should ask mama, if necessary”. She doesn’t know how much her dress cost or what the family’s annual butcher’s bill is, either. Shocking stuff.

Next up, we have Miss Harriet Somers. She “would not refuse a young man with £300 a year.” She can needlework, and she can make face washes (I like the sound of that) but “cannot tell how she would set about making an apple-dumpling.” Neither can I, but it sounds delicious. She would expect her potential husband to be ill sometimes, but would shamefully send out to the pastrycook’s for his recuperative “calves’-foot jelley” as “it never occurred to her that she might make it herself. If she tried, should buy some calves’ feet; what next she should do, cannot say.” At this point, she need only refer to any cookery book – Invalid Cookery was a hot topic in all of them at this point. She “likes dancing better than anything else” which is much the same as many young ladies now, really.

Miss Jane Briggs “looks forward to a union with somebody in her own station of life”. Of course. She “really cannot say what a ledger is,” and “has never ironed a frill”. Neither have I, and I intend to keep it that way. She has eaten fowl, but never trussed one, and is in the dark as to how you make stuffing for a duck or goose.

Miss Elizabeth Atkins “has no idea whether she is a minor or not” and “cannot say whether she is a legatee or a testatrix”. Idiot. Doesn’t know how much milk or starch cost. “Her time is principally occupied in fancy work, reading novels, and playing quadrilles and waltzes on the piano.”

Sixty more ladies were apparently interviewed in this way, and more shocking statistics follow – only three knew how to corn beef, six knew what a sausage consisted of (does anyone really know this for sure?), and a mere four could make an onion sauce. None of them could brew alcohol. Punch “shudders at the idea” of what is to become of their future husbands. The poor onion-sauce-less, crumpled-frill-wearing husbands, ill in bed with their non-homemade calves’ feet jelly.

I love this line – as true of teenagers today as then (and quite right too) – “They mostly could tell what the last new song was; but none of them knew the current price of beef.”

NB. Incidentally, you might have noticed that Brown Windsor Soap is highlighted in the article. More of this in a future post – as I’m trying to determine whether Brown Windsor Soup (SOUP, that is) is an actual, real Victorian thing, or a later invention, and mainly used for comedy purposes.

Tags 1843, Punch, West Kent Guardian, women

Adverts Pharmaceuticals Victorian

Dr Ricord’s Essence of Life, 1851

Post author By Estelle
Post date June 22, 2015

Oxford University Herald, 21st September 1851

“Dr Ricord’s Essence of Life” – there’s a product that promises a lot. Even going by the standard Victorian pharmaceutical predilection to claim that their medicine will cure half of the ailments in a medical dictionary.

It promises “The vigour of youth restored in four weeks” but what does that mean?

“This wonderful agent will restore manhood to the most shattered constitution, whether arising from self-pollution, excesses, nocturnal emissions, the effects of climate, or natural causes.”

OK, so it’s Victorian Viagra for those who’ve broken themselves with too much “self-pollution”?

“The time required to cure the most inveterate case is four weeks; and, if used according to the printed instructions (which are very simple), failure is impossible.” Of course, one thing that all Victorian pharmaceuticals seem to have in common is that they all “never fail”. Or, as this advert puts it, “Success in every case is as certain as that water quenches thirst.”

But hang on! What does it actually do? Because – “This life-restoring remedy should be taken by all about to marry, as its effects are permanent.” What “effects” are these? Is this why Prince Albert got a prince albert?

“It is acknowledged by the medical press to be the greatest discovery ever made.” Strangely, I can’t find any evidence of this.

Unfortunately, I can’t find any analysis of what was in this remedy – the British Medical Association’s Secret Remedies book doesn’t investigate that particular product, but maybe when that book was published, in 1909, it wasn’t available anymore.

Looking at other Dr Ricord’s adverts, which were widely placed in local newspapers over the 1850s and 1860s, they don’t often seem to mention the “self-pollution” and “nocturnal emissions” bits although the wording is otherwise the same. But then, this advert was in a university newspaper, so maybe this was a special student version.

Tags 1851, advert, Dr Ricord's Essence of Life, Oxford University Herald, pharmaceuticals

1900-1949 Adverts War

Cure for Lice in the Trenches, 1915

Post author By Estelle
Post date June 19, 2015

Lanarkshire Daily Record, 9th October 1915

The trenches of the First World War were pretty hellish – and made worse by the fact that you were also likely to become infested with lice – “Our soldiers greatest enemy in the trenches.” So here’s a cure for them advertised in the local newspapers at the time. The adverts are directed towards family members to buy for their soldiers and then post them to the trenches. It’s “Somerville’s Asiatic Body Cord”, which apparently “Exterminates all body lice and prevents them lodging on the person or underclothing.”

The lice were the potential cause of huge problems. Apart from the irritation of the bites, they could also carry typhus and other diseases. The “Asiatic Body Cord” was based on an Indian folk medicine cure. It consisted of a woollen cord tied around the waist, and which was impregnated with 2 parts mercury ointment and 1 part beeswax. The mercury ointment was presumably toxic to the lice, but it could also be toxic to the soldier too with prolonged use. “The skin absorbs its germicide properties, and these are carried to all parts of the body” says one advertisement, which isn’t great if the germicide is mercury.

At the height of production, 120,000 body cords were produced per year.

Edinburgh Evening News, 18th December 1916

“Far superior and more effective than any insect-powder”, the advert says in relation to what was probably its main rival – Keating’s Powder, as well as Maw’s Antiverm Trench Powder.

“Keating’s Powder” was a more long-standing insect powder, used in Victorian kitchens too to rid the house of beetles and the like. This advert implies the fact that it’s been around a while with its “Business as usual!!-Beetles as usual!!-Killed as usual!!” It contained pyrethrum, an insecticide found in chrysanthemum flowers.

Tags 1915, First World War, lice, pharmaceuticals, trenches