Owbridge’s Lung Tonic was a cure-all preparation invented in 1874 by Hull pharmacist Walter Owbridge. It was advertised as a cough medicine, a remedy for bronchitis, asthma, consumption (tuberculosis) and all manner of other throat, chest and lung afflictions – “It never fails”, or so it claimed.
It had a secret formula, but an archive analysis shows it to have consisted of chloroform, along with honey and alcohol in the form of ipecacuanha wine. Not recommended for babies under 6 months old, but fine after that, apparently.
They were also keen users of promotional merchandise. This small booklet, Owbridge’s Table Companion, is from 1939 and is designed to help schoolchildren with facts and figures, while advertising their wares.
Owbridge’s Table Companion, 1939
Owbridge’s Table Companion, 1939
The section on measurements of all manner of things interests me the most. All the befuddling names for specific amounts used just for that one item. I wonder if the schoolchildren were actually expected to know and remember all this information?
Hydropathic Pudding is today’s title, but it was really a toss up between that and “Life’s too short to clean a currant”.
The Liverpool Training School of Cookery was a long established institution in Colquitt St in Liverpool City centre. It eventually turned into the Liverpool Catering College and is now part of Liverpool City College. I found a fascinating little article from 1893 on the way the School was run in an Illinois newspaper of all places, the “Western Rural and American Stockman” – http://idnc.library.illinois.edu/cgi-bin/illinois?a=d&d=WRA18930304.2.20#
The School issued a thin volume of basic recipes for use in Elementary Schools, which is where I come in. I have the edition dated 1902, sponsored by Bird’s Custard (a classic brand, right there). I also own a very similar book called “The Essex Cookery Book” from 1930, so perhaps there were a few such regional variations on the theme.
Liverpool Training School of Cookery book, 1902
Liverpool Training School of Cookery book, 1902
Amongst the collection were the invalid recipes as were standard in cookery books of the time. Here’s an “invalid cake”, presumably designated as such because it’s fairly plain. A perk of being ill, you’ve got your own special cake at least.
Liverpool Training School of Cookery book, 1902
But onto the Hydropathic pudding, the recipe which most caught my eye, sounding as it does like a medical treatment rather than dessert. Funny, I thought, (in Dudley Moore’s voice), the recipe only mentions “a little water” but the name of it sounds like it should be awash in the stuff. But no, this was another invalid recipe, or otherwise a health food, as the bread casing was lighter than pastry or suet-based puddings. And it was called “Hydropathic” because it was served in spas of the time.
It’s still a popular dessert now, but we now know it by the infinitely more appealing name of Summer Pudding.
And so to cleaning currants. I’m not sure how they came in 1902 but evidently they needed cleaning. Thank god this isn’t necessary now – presumably? Suddenly I’m worried, have I spent my life missing out a vital stage of food preparation? Do you all clean currants out there?
You need flour for this, water might re-hydrate them and sticky them up a bit. This does explain why currant wrinkles are sometimes a bit floury, I suppose.
Last recipe for now, and always the one I’m happiest to see in the vintage books – raspberry buns. Every old cookery book had a recipe for them, but you never see them these days. It was also the first recipe I vividly remember making in Domestic Science class and so it’s a hugely nostalgic taste for me. I think I’ll make some for a future vintage recipe blog post.
Last, but very definitely not least, this book contains Hidden Treasure. And my favourite kind as well, a scribbled recipe kept there by a previous owner. This one’s on an envelope from the Isle of Wight in 1949 and it’s for various delicious sounding caramel things:
If a person wearing advertising boards (or a “human advertising medium”) front and back is a “Sandwich” then what other food-based item are they called if the boards enclose them on all four sides? A “Toad in the hole”, of course!
Pharmacist's receipt for The Liverpool Virus rat poison, 1913
I’ve recently discovered the thrills of the “ephemera” section of Ebay. Not least, the word “ephemera” itself which is now vying for the position of my favourite word, alongside “nebula”.
I was looking for old playing cards, and am now the proud owner of some gloriously grotesque Edwardian Happy Family sets. But I was enthralled by the other random and delicate stuff that has survived, almost by accident.
I now have all manner of old bits and pieces, including Liverpool pharmacy receipts from 1913 – the days when names were taken and logged on the paperwork, all the better to know who’d suspiciously been purchasing arsenic after a case of poisoning. They included this receipt for “The Liverpool Virus” rat poison:
Pharmacist’s receipt for The Liverpool Virus rat poison, 1913
Which feels rather like crucial evidence at the start of either an Agatha Christie, or a zombie film.
But the thing I really like about the ephemera is that they are a handy jumping off point into history. A little tangible clue to inspire a bit of history-surfing.
I’ve discovered resources I didn’t know of, like the joys of the Old Bailey’s archive of court case transcripts. I’ve found out about the ship SS Homeric from a letter written on board to a friend in 1932. Leatherhead bus routes in the 1920s from an old bus leaflet. And I’ve been perusing the British Medical Journal archives on account of an outbreak of severe enteritis caused by this “Liverpool Virus” rat poison in 1908. It turns out despite the manufacturer’s claims that it was safe for humans, it very likely contained some form of salmonella.
Advert for The Liverpool Virus
I’m especially fascinated by the pharmaceuticals of the Victorian and Edwardian era – the hard drugs you could buy over the counter, and the potentially dangerous snake oils that promised to fix you up and paint the garden gate while they were at it (and I’m speaking as someone who was rather severely quizzed by a doctor last week as to why I even owned a bottle of Piriton).
I love an old advert. The pictures, the phrasings, the products….you can often deduce a lot about the time period from very little information. Which is why www.gypsycreams.org is one of my favourite corners of the web – its interesting magazine adverts and articles from the 50s to the 70s were a big influence on me doing a similar thing with my old books.
Having said that, I’m not quite sure what to make of this advert for “Gland therapy” from the February 1940 issue of PTO Magazine.
Gland therapy advert, PTO Magazine, February 1940
But I am reminded of the euphemisms in Monty Python’s Tobacconists sketch:
