The Best Jellied Eels to be had in London

Cavendish Mews is a smart set of flats in Mayfair where flapper and modern woman, the Honourable Lettice Chetwynd has set up home after coming of age and gaining her allowance. To supplement her already generous allowance, and to break away from dependence upon her family, Lettice has established herself as a society interior designer, so her flat is decorated with a mixture of elegant antique Georgian pieces and modern Art Deco furnishings, using it as a showroom for what she can offer to her well heeled clients.

 

Today however, we are south-east of Cavendish Mews, past the British Museum with its classically colonnaded entrance, and beyond Sir Christopher Wren’s architectural masterpiece of St Pauls Cathedral, past Fish Street Hill and Pudding Lane, where the Great Fire of London started. Within sight of the towering monument to the Great Fire of London* with its golden orb atop its Doric column we find ourselves in the south-east corner of the City of London borough in Lower Thames Street near the Billingsgate Dock at the Old Billingsgate Fish Market**. Here we find Edith, Lettice’s maid, who has travelled here with her beau, shop grocer’s boy and sometimes window dresser for grocer Mr. Walter Willison in Binney Street, Mayfair on their Sunday afternoon off. Edith and Frank have been stepping out together for some time now, and hope to make their arrangement formal soon with an official engagement announcement, and they enjoy spending their Sundays off together. In this case, Edith is mixing business with pleasure. She and Frank have come to enjoy watching the hustle and bustle of the market and have some fresh seafood as a Sunday luncheon treat, but Edith also needs to buy some fresh oysters to serve as hors d'oeuvres for the dinner party Lettice is hosting this evening for a group of her Embassy Club coterie friends - fashion designer Gerald Bruton who lives in nearby Soho and married couple Dickie and Margot Channon who live just around the corner from Cavendish Mews in a flat on Hill Street.

 

Clutching her green leather purse and small wicker basket hooked over her left arm close to her, Edith tries to make herself as unobtrusive as possible to the constant barrage of foot traffic passing through the narrow aisle she stands on the edge of. Old Billingsgate Fish Market is a bustling centre of activity, even though the pre-dawn hours of the handling of fresh catches, and the presence of casual workers and porters has passed. The market is a hive of activity with workers unloading crates, merchants selling their goods, people seeking casual work and the hoteliers, restaurant owners, housewives and maids, like herself, of London buying fish for Sunday luncheon or dinner, or for a meal in the week ahead. Outside the old Victorian market with its ornate cast iron columns, the streets are choked with lorries and horse drawn carts loaded with full and empty crates stamped with different fishmonger names, whilst between them people move precariously in the squashed spaces, coming and going. The sound of blasting horns from impatient drivers, the whinny of horses, the chug of engines, the clop of horses’ hooves, the calls of workmen and the general chatter of people adds to the multi sonorous cacophony of merchants calling out their wares and customers talking, heavy booted footsteps, the slap of fish flesh being tossed about and the rustle of newsprint and butchers’ paper as parcels are wrapped up and handed over into eager hands. The smell of the fish is strong and permeates Edith’s nose, but she doesn’t mind, as fresh fish has always been a treat that she associates with Good Friday fish dinners*** at home with her parents in Harlesden in the north-west of London.

 

Edith moves and presses herself further back against the edge of a wooden counter belonging to a stallholder as a Billingsgate porter walks past wearing his wood and tarred leather bobbin**** atop his head, upon which he balances fourteen round wicker baskets. She looks agog at the towering pile of baskets, amazed at how casual and cheerful the porter seems as he stops in front of another porter who only has two boxes balanced on his head. The latter lights two cigarettes in his mouth, dropping the match onto the water slicked concrete floor where it is immediately extinguished, and then withdraws one cigarette and offers it to the other porter, who smiles gratefully and thanks him as he takes it, and they chat away casually beneath the cast iron girders of the fish market’s roof.

 

“You’re starting to look like the fish being sold here, Edith.” Frank’s familiar voice says light heartedly, slicing through the noisy clamour around Edith.

 

Frank appears before Edith from behind the bulk of rather pudgy fishmonger in a fish blood and gut stained white coverall dustcoat wearing rather incongruously, a rather smart sleek black felt trilby***** hat. In each hand Frank has a sturdy newspaper wrapped parcel.

 

“Don’t be rude, Frank Leadbetter!” Edith responds, releasing the pent-up breath she didn’t realise she had been holding as she waited for her beau to return to her side.

 

“Well I’m sorry, Edith,” Frank apologises. “But you do! A slack mouth and eyes agog makes you look very fish like.”

 

“Oh! Much obliged!” Edith says sarcastically, making a mock bob curtsey. Loosening her hands from where she has them tightly wrapped around her arms, she playfully slaps her sweetheart’s upper arm. “Thank you very much!”

 

“You know me, Edith. I speak plainly, and I speak as I find.” Frank says as he adjusts the parcel in his left hand.

 

“Well maybe you shouldn’t when it comes to how you perceive my look.” Edith remarks a little peevishly. “Especially if it is an unflattering one. My Mum always says that if you can’t say anything nice, then you are best to say nothing at all.” She nods seriously.

 

“Does that mean that when you ask me whether you look pretty in your latest homemade frock you plan to wear to the Hammersmith Palais******, I should say yes, you do?”

 

“Don’t be cheeky!” Edith slaps Frank playfully again before accepting one of the parcels from him, feeling the warmth of it against her palm through her ecru lace gloves. “And anyway,” she adds. “If I want an honest opinion about my looks, I’ll seek out Hilda, thank you very much.”

 

“For a favourable opinion, more like!” snorts Frank. “Hilda doesn’t know the first thing about fashion, or care, and you know it. She’s not the least bit interested in that stuff. The only reason why she even wears anything remotely fashionable is because you give it to her, or insist she buys it.”

 

“Hilda’s not that bad, Frank.”

 

Frank doesn’t answer, but gives her a doubtful look, followed by one of his endearing gormless grins as he starts to tear at the newspaper of his own parcel.

 

“You took your time,” Edith opines as she starts to tear at her own parcel. “That isn’t because you went and bought some jellied eels******* for us to eat, is it?”

 

“As if I’d put cold jellied eels in with hot chips!” Frank replies with incredulity, pulling back the last of the newspaper and holding out the pile of steaming hot golden chips in his palm for Edith to see. Before he can react, Edith reaches forward and like one of the many scavenging seagulls around the fish market and Billingsgate Dock, she snatches one of his chips between her right index finger and thumb. “Here!” Frank blasts. “Now who’s being cheeky?”

 

Edith sighs with satisfaction as she pops the chip into her mouth, lowering her lids with delight as she feels the hot mass of flavoursome potato and batter fill her senses as she chews it. Swallowing she says, ignoring her sweetheart’s remark, “That’s just as well then, because I keep telling you, the best jellied eels come out of the Whitechapel eel, pie and mash house******** in Petticoat Lane********.”

 

“Says you, Edith.” Frank retorts as he watches Edith with beady eyes as she opens her own parcel of hot chips wrapped in newspaper*********, looking for an opportunity to steal a steaming hot chip from her. “There I must disagree with you. The best jellied eels come from right here in the Old Billingsgate Fish Market.”

 

“Have you ever tried the eels at Mrs. Cooke’s**********, Frank?”

 

“No, but I don’t need to,” Frank says with a smirk, as he quickly snatches two chips from atop Edith’s pile. He hurriedly stuffs them into his mouth and gobbles them up greedily, smiling as Edith’s eyes grow wide in surprise before she gives him a forgiving smile that tells him that his sweetheart isn’t really cross with him for taking two of her chips. Swallowing hard with a loud gulp that makes his Adam’s apple bounce up his throat above the line of his stiffened shirt collar*********** and tie, he goes on, “Because the jellied eels here are the best.” He looks at her defiantly. “Have you ever had jellied eels from here, Edith?”

 

“Well no,” Edith answers. Her look becomes defiant as she parrots Frank. “But then again, I don’t need to, since Mrs. Cooke’s jellied eels are the best. We should go there some time.”

 

“I’d rather save my pennies and take you for a proper, slap-up, meal at my chum Giuseppe’s little Italian restaurant up the Islington in Little Italy************, Edith.”

 

“So you said, that first afternoon I introduced you to my Mum and Dad,” remarks Edith as she picks up another hot chip daintily between her thumb and forefinger. “And subsequently, but you’ve yet to take me.”

 

“Well, we’ll have to remedy that,” Frank replies as he takes up three of his own chips with the fingers of his right hand. “And soon.”

 

“I’d like that Frank.” Edith opines with a smile.

 

The pair chuckle good naturedly and much away on their hot chips for a moment in companionable silence whilst around them the hustle and bustle of the fish market continues. “Watch out lad!” a serious voice booms behind Frank, startling him and making him jump. Stepping aside he lets a burly looking porter in a grubby ochre coloured dustcoat with short sleeves over the top of a navy woollen cable knit jumper ease past. The porter pushes a trolley loaded up with long wooden crates stencilled ‘Fleetwood Fish Merchants Association’************* in black lettering stamped crudely against the roughly planed planks of wood making up each box. He is closely followed by a much thinner, more nervous and better dressed older gentleman with a wrinkled face, dressed in a suit and bowler hat, with a silver fob chain************** hanging heavily from his black waistcoat. “There’s a cart waiting outside on Lower Thames Street.” The older man directs with a waving finger that the porter cannot see behind his broad back. As he passes, Frank thinks that with his nose in the air and a superior look on his face, the better dressed man has the appearance and stance of a butler or manservant of some kind. “Be careful with those!” the older man mutters irritably. “They are going to be served at Her Ladyship’s dinner tonight.” Frank nods at Edith with a knowing wink, understanding that she has thought the same of the older man as she sums him up as he passes. “I’m sure ‘er laydeeship and ‘er guests won’t taste no diff’rence wiv these fish once they’ve been fried up good n’ proper, whevva they’s been jostled ‘bout a bit or not.” the porter replies in his Cockney accent with a mirth filled chuckle. “Insolent man!” the toffee nosed butler mutters indignantly in reply. Edith and Frank chuckle again.

 

“So,” Edith says, returning to their earlier topic of conversation. “Where were you then, if you weren’t fetching me the famously good, but not as good as Mrs. Cooke’s, Old Billingsgate Fish Market jellied eels, then Frank?”

 

“What?” Frank asks before looking down and stuffing another claw full of greasy chips into his mouth.

 

“Where were you, Frank?” Edith reiterates, indicating at Frank with the chip she has just picked up.

 

“Gosh! Look at that one then!” Frank mutters through a mouth of half chewed hot potato and batter as he points to another porter in the middle distance who is parting the milling crowd of customers as he walks with four crates atop his bobbin. “How they don’t get a headache carrying those boxes on their heads, I’ll never know! My head’s sore just looking at him. Don’t you agree, Edith?”

 

Edith gives her beau a peculiar look. “You’re being remarkably mysterious, Frank.” Her brow crumples. “Are you doing it on purpose?”

 

“I’m not being mysterious!” Frank says with a disbelieving laugh.

 

“Then stop changing the subject. Where were you?” Edith persists.

 

Frank sighs. “Haven’t you ever heard of a queue before, Edith?” he answers.

 

“Yes, but there is a fish and chippery just over there,” Edith points through the sea of moving people around them to a stallholder selling hot chips and battered fish packaged up in newspaper to the milling crowd. “And you were gone a lot longer than it took for people to get served over there, Frank. And people were queuing.” She takes the chip and slips it into her own mouth, chewing it as she looks expectantly at Frank, awaiting an explanation.

 

“Well, these aren’t just any old chips you know.”

 

Edith pulls a doubtful face, her pretty face screwing up dubiously. “Surely you aren’t going to tell me that these hot chips are better than any others served by any of the other fish and chippery stalls here?”

 

“Now you know that some hot chips are better than others, Edith,” Frank continues, shaking his head. “And he’s the best there is in the Old Billingsgate Fish Market. Says it’s his batter that makes all the difference.” He taps his nose knowingly. “Trust me.”

 

“Well, they are good,” Edith agrees. “But I still don’t believe you, Frank Leadbetter, and,” she adds. “I still think that you are being mysterious, and are up to something.”

 

“I’m not up to anything, Edith!”

 

“I hope you aren’t thinking of proposing to me here in the middle of the busy fish market!”

 

Frank coughs and splutters, spitting out a few pieces of partially masticated chip pulp, which flies through the air, before handing a short distance away on the ground where it is promptly squashed unknowingly onto the wet concrete floor by the old fashioned pre-war Edwardian boot of an older looking housewife in a black three quarter length coat and matching cloche hat with a steely look of determination on her face as she trudges forth with her wicker basket in the crook of her arm. He muffles his barrage of coughs with the back of his right hand, before delving into his trouser pocket and withdrawing a crumpled white handkerchief.

 

Whilst he recovers his breath, Edith remarks with a smile, “Well, I’ll take that as a no, then.”

 

“Are you so desperate… to marry me… Edith Watsford,” Frank huffs as he tries to answer his sweetheart whilst still catching his breath and swallowing gulps of fishy air. “That you’d have… have me propose to you in a busy fish market?” When Edith giggles, he goes on, “I wouldn’t call Old Billingsgate the most romantic of rendezvous to propose marriage in, even if there would be a gawking crowd of onlookers if I bent down on one knee and proposed to you here and now.”

 

Edith chuckles again. “I suppose you’re right, Frank. And, I wouldn’t want you to propose to me here.”

 

“Well, I’m glad we have that point settled then.” Frank sighs with a nod.

 

“Just imagine the stories we’d tell the children on our anniversary when they ask where you proposed, Frank!” Edith chuckles. “Oh, your dad proposed to me in the middle of the Old Billingsgate Fish Market. It was the most romantic moment of my life!”

 

Frank chuckles. “I imagine that!”

 

“But you still haven’t told me why you took so long to come back with the chips, Frank.”

 

“But I have, Edith!” Frank says with exasperation. “I told you, it was the queues. Sidney had the best fish and chips to be had in Old Billingsgate. You have to be patient.”

 

Edith eats another two chips as her greatly reduce pile disappears. “You’re a terrible liar, Frank.”

 

Frank sighs in vexation as he finishes the last of his chips and bunches the greasy paper together in a ball in his hands. “How do you know I’m not telling the truth?”

 

Edith chuckles. “That’s my secret, Frank.”

 

“That’s jolly unfair, Edith!” Frank bemoans, looking imploringly at Edith with large, doleful blue eyes.

 

“Oh alright! I’ll tell you, Frank.” Edith accedes.

 

“Jolly good Edith.”

 

“But I’m not giving away all my secrets.” she adds. “I need to have some advantages as your future wife.”

 

“How?” Frank persists. “How do you know that I’m lying? Tell me!”

 

“We’ve been stepping out together for quite some time now, dear Frank.” Edith says kindly. “So, I’ve had plenty of time to observe you. When you don’t want to tell the truth, you have a habit of pretending you haven’t heard what was said, and trying to change the subject too quickly.” She shakes her head and smiles. “Besides, you won’t look me in the eye when you are telling a lie.”

 

Frank huffs. “Oh alright! Alright! I just ran into a friend when I went to buy us hot chips.” He looks Edith squarely in the eyes with an earnest look as he speaks. “We were chatting.”

 

“That’s better!” Edith smiles. “Now I know you are telling me the truth. What friend?”

 

“Well, he’s one of the chaps who lodges at my boarding house, actually. John Simpkin. But he’s a friend too.”

 

“What, here?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“Well that just shows you, doesn’t it?”

 

“Shows me what, Edith?”

 

“How even in a large city like London, you can still bump into friends in the most unlikely of places.”

 

Frank holds out his hand as Edith finishes the last of her hot chips. He screws up her newspaper into a ball as she hands it to him. He walks to a nearby dustbin and drops both his and her used greasy papers into it before wandering back over to her.

 

“Well, shall we go and get your Miss Lettice her dozen oysters for tonight’s dinner, then?”

 

“Yes!” Edith says, taking her beau’s proffered arm, with a smile. “I’d like that, Mr. Leadbetter. Do you know who sells the best oysters here by chance?”

 

“Right this way, Miss Watsford.” Frank replies, as slowly the pair of sweethearts meld into the slowly moving crowd, jostling for space beneath the cast iron girders of the Old Billingsgate Fish Market.

 

*The Monument to the Great Fire of London, more commonly known simply as the Monument, is a fluted Doric column, situated near the northern end of London Bridge. Commemorating the Great Fire of London, it stands at the junction of Monument Street and Fish Street Hill, two hundred and two feet in height and two hundred and two feet west of the spot in Pudding Lane where the Great Fire started on the 2nd of September 1666. Constructed between 1671 and 1677, it was built on the site of St Margaret, New Fish Street, the first church to be destroyed by the Great Fire. Another monument, the Golden Boy of Pye Corner, marks the point near Smithfield where the fire was stopped. The Monument comprises a Doric column built of Portland stone topped with a gilded urn of fire. It was designed by Robert Hooke. Its height marks its distance from the site of the shop of Thomas Farriner (or Farynor), the king's baker, where the blaze began. The viewing platform near the top of the Monument is reached by a narrow winding staircase of three hundred and eleven steps. A mesh cage was added in the mid Nineteenth Century to prevent people jumping to the ground, after six people died by suicide there between 1788 and 1842.

 

**In the 1920s when this story is set, the Old Billingsgate Fish Market was located on Lower Thames Street in the City of London, near the River Thames. It was a bustling riverside market, famous for being the largest fish market in the United Kingdom. The market was housed in a Victorian building that had been constructed in 1876. The first Billingsgate Market building was constructed on Lower Thames Street in 1850 by the builder John Jay, and the fish market was moved off the streets into its new riverside building. This was demolished in around 1873 and replaced by an arcaded market hall designed by City architect Horace Jones and built by John Mowlem and Co., and even though it was a new building, it was still known as the “Old Billingsgate Fish Market”. The building still stands on the site today although it no longer houses a market. In 1982, the fish market itself was relocated to a new site on the Isle of Dogs in the East End. The 1875 building was then refurbished by architect Richard Rogers, originally to provide office accommodation. Now used as an events venue, it remains a major London landmark.

 

***Eating fish on Good Friday is a tradition rooted in religious customs, specifically within Christianity. Many Christians abstain from eating meat on Good Friday, which is the day they commemorate the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, and fish is often consumed as an alternative. This practice stems from the idea that fish are cold-blooded and therefore distinct from the "flesh" of warm-blooded animals, making them acceptable to eat during periods of abstinence from meat.

 

****Billingsgate fish porters used specially designed hats, often referred to as "bobbins," to help them balance baskets and boxes on their heads. These hats, typically made from wood and tarred leather, featured a flat, hardened top that provided a stable platform for the cargo. This design allowed porters to carry large, rectangular boxes or stacks of round baskets of fish with relative ease and efficiency.

 

*****The trilby hat was invented in 1895, during the stage adaptation of George du Maurier's novel "Trilby". The hat gained popularity as a fashion item after the play's debut in London, and was named after the novel's main character.

 

******The Hammersmith Palais de Danse, in its last years simply named Hammersmith Palais, was a dance hall and entertainment venue in Hammersmith, London, England that operated from 1919 until 2007. It was the first palais de danse to be built in Britain.

 

*******Jellied eels is a traditional English dish that originated in the Eighteenth Century, primarily in the East End of London. The dish consists of chopped eels boiled in a spiced stock that is allowed to cool and set, forming a jelly. It is usually served cold. Eels were historically a cheap, nutritious and readily available food source for the people of London; European eels were once so common in the Thames that nets were set as far upriver as London itself, and eels became a staple for London's poor.

 

********The earliest known eel, pie and mash houses opened in London in the Eighteenth Century, and the oldest surviving shop, M.Manze in Peckham, has been open since 1902. At the end of the Second World War, there were around one hundred eel, pie and mash houses in London. In 1995, there were 87. In the present day, there are relatively few eel, pie and mash shops left as Londoners’ tastes change, although jellied eels are sold in some of London’s delicatessens and supermarkets for those who fancy the experience of jellied eels at home.

 

********Petticoat Lane Market is a fashion and clothing market in Spitalfields, London. It consists of two adjacent street markets. Wentworth Street Market and Middlesex Street Market. Originally populated by Huguenots fleeing persecution in France, Spitalfields became a center for weaving, embroidery and dying. From 1882, a wave of Jewish immigrants fleeing persecution in eastern Europe settled in the area and Spitalfields then became the true heart of the clothing manufacturing district of London. 'The Lane' was always renowned for the 'patter' and showmanship of the market traders. It was also known for being a haven for the unsavoury characters of London’s underworld and was rife with prostitutes during the late Victorian era. Unpopular with the authorities, as it was largely unregulated and in some sense illegal, as recently as the 1930s, police cars and fire engines were driven down ‘The Lane’, with alarm bells ringing, to disrupt the market.

 

*********Fish and chips were traditionally wrapped in newspaper as a way to keep them warm and absorb excess grease, while also being a readily available and inexpensive packaging material. However, this practice is now largely discontinued due to hygiene concerns, with the potential for ink from the newspaper to leach into the food.

 

**********F. Cooke is a well-known name in London's pie and mash scene, with a history rooted in East London. While there isn't a specific F. Cooke shop currently in Whitechapel, their history is closely tied to the area and they are one of the oldest pie and mash establishments, originally founded in East London. F. Cooke's has a strong reputation for traditional pie and mash, including eel pies, and is known for its family-run business and classic recipes.

 

***********Removable or detachable collars were shirt collars designed to be separate from the shirt itself and fastened with studs or other mechanisms. They were popular in the Nineteenth and early Twentieth centuries, primarily among men who wore white shirts as part of their business or formal attire.

 

************The Italian quarter of London, known commonly today as “Little Italy” is an Italian ethnic enclave in London. Little Italy’s core historical borders are usually placed at Clerkenwell Road, Farringdon Road and Rosebery Avenue - the Saffron Hill area of Clerkenwell. Clerkenwell spans Camden Borough and Islington Borough. Saffron Hill and St. Peter’s Italian Catholic Church fall within the Camden side. However, even though this was the traditional enclave for Italians, immigrants moved elsewhere in London, bleeding into areas like Islington and Soho where they established bars, cafes and restaurants which sold Italian cuisine and wines.

 

*************The Fleetwood Fish Merchants Association (FFMA) is a group in Fleetwood, the fishing town in Lancashire, focused on the fish and seafood processing industry. Established in the late Nineteenth Century, the Fleetwood Fish Merchants Association helps to represent the community of smaller fisheries and fishermen in and around Fleetwood, helping to supply fresh fish to Londoners.

 

**************A fob chain, also known as an Albert chain, is a decorative chain, originally designed for pocket watches, that typically features a T-bar or dog clip on one end to attach to the watch and often includes a fob (ornament or charm) on the other end.

 

This may look like a corner of the busy Old Billingsgate Market to you, with its wooden crates and pallets of fish, but the truth is that this scene is made up entirely with pieces from my 1:12 miniatures collection.

 

Fun things to look for un this tableau include:

 

The pallet of fish on ice in the centre of the image comes from Beautifully Handmade Miniatures in Kettering. The fish and all the ice is completely removable, and if you have noticed ice cubes inside some of the wine and champagne coolers in some of my past images from this series, I can tell you that the same ice cubes have been used.

 

Edith’s handbag handmade from soft leather is part of a larger collection of hats and bags that I bought from an American miniature collector Marilyn Bickel. Edith’s small wicker basket is another miniature from Beautifully Handmade Miniatures.

 

Made of polymer clay glazed to look oily and stuck to miniature newspaper print, the two servings of golden hot chips on the bench were made in England by hand by former chef turned miniature artisan, Frances Knight. Her work is incredibly detailed and realistic, and she says that she draws her inspiration from her years as a chef and her imagination.

 

The boxes you see around the fish stall came from a specialist stockist of 1:12 miniatures on E-Bay. They have been aged and weathered on purpose.

 

The leaves of lettuce sticking out of the top box on the left are artisan made of very thin sheets of clay and are beautifully detailed. I acquired them from an auction house some twenty years ago as part of a lot made up of miniature artisan food.

 

The brick wall at the back is a very special piece, and one of my more recent additions to my miniatures collection. Made painstakingly by hand, this was made by my very dear Flickr friend and artist Kim Hagar (www.flickr.com/photos/bkhagar_gallery/), she surprised me with this amazing piece entitled “Wall” as a Christmas gift, with the intention that I use it in my miniatures photos. Each brick has been individually cut and then worn to give texture before being stuck to the backing board and then painted. She has created several floors in the same way for some of her own miniature projects which you can see in her “In Miniature” album here: www.flickr.com/photos/bkhagar_gallery/albums/721777203007...

 

The advertising posters stuck on the brick wall are all 1:12 size replicas of real advertisements for Rinso, Gold Flake cigarettes, Hartley’s Table Jellies, Hovis Bread and Bisto Gravy from the 1920s. They have been printed with quality and high attention to detail on thick card. I acquired them all from Kathleen Knight’s Dolls’ House Shop in the United Kingdom.

 

Rinso, was a brand of laundry soap and detergent, which was first introduced in the early Twentieth Century by the chemist Robert Spear Hudson (who also invented Hudson’s Soap). In 1908, Lever Brothers acquired R.S. Hudson, including the Rinso brand. Lever Brothers introduced Rinso to the United States in 1918, marking it as one of the first mass-marketed soap powders. Rinso gaining popularity as a replacement for bar soap. Rinso gained popularity for its effectiveness in cleaning clothes and was widely advertised, even sponsoring popular radio programs. While initially successful, Rinso eventually faced declining sales due to competition from newer detergents like Tide in the 1950s. In the mid-1960s, Rinso was rebranded as "Sunshine Rinso" but sales did not improve. By the mid-1970s, Rinso was removed from store shelves, though Rinso Blue, a liquid detergent, remained available in the US until the late 1980s.

 

W.D. and H.O. Wills, a prominent tobacco company, introduced Gold Flake cigarettes around 1901. The brand became known for its marketing tactics, including the use of cigarette cards to encourage collectability and brand loyalty. At this time, the dangers of smoking were not yet widely known, and cigarette companies were able to advertise and promote their products freely. Over time, Gold Flake adapted its marketing and messaging. While maintaining its association with high quality and a premium feel, the brand expanded its target audience to include youth and lower socioeconomic classes. The messaging also evolved from emphasizing a "gracious" lifestyle to celebrating life experiences. ITC Limited launched the Gold Flake brand in India in the 1970s. The brand was initially positioned as a premium cigarette, targeting the affluent adult male segment of the population. It was associated with a lifestyle of respectability and aspiration. Gold Flake remains a widely sold cigarette brand in India, available in various forms like plain, filtered, and lights. The brand's history reflects the changing landscape of the tobacco industry, including evolving marketing strategies and growing awareness of the health risks associated with smoking.

 

Hartley's is a British brand of marmalades, jams and jellies. Hartley's products are manufactured at Histon, Cambridgeshire. Hartley's was a grocers founded by the entrepreneur Sir William Pickles Hartley in Colne which is now in the borough of Pendle, Lancashire. In 1871, a supplier failed to deliver a consignment of jam, so William made his own and packaged it in his own design earthenware pots. It sold well, and in 1874, the business moved to Bootle, near Liverpool, and marmalade and jelly was also produced. In 1884, the business was incorporated as William Hartley & Sons Limited and in 1886, it moved to Aintree, Liverpool where a new factory was built. Two years after the new factory had been opened in Aintree, Hartley constructed a purpose built village for the key employees in his company. The village was designed by Leek based father and son architects William Sugden and William Larner Sugden after they had won an architectural competition. The village had a total of forty nine houses, which surrounded a central bowling green, and later expansion took the total number of houses to seventy one. Within the village, all of the streets were named after ingredients in jam, including Sugar Street, Red Currant Court and Cherry Row. A second factory in Bermondsey, South London opened in 1901, supplied with pots and jars in its early decades from a facility in Rutherglen, Scotland acquired in 1898. With production having moved to Cambridgeshire in the 1960s, the Bermondsey factory was later converted into luxury apartments in 2003. The Hartley Village in Aintree was made a conservation area in 2011. In 2020, Hartley's No Added Sugar Apple Jelly Pot won the Lausanne Index Prize - Bronze Award.

 

Hovis Ltd is a British company that produces flour, yeast and bread. Founded in Stoke-on-Trent, it began mass-production in Macclesfield in 1886. The Hovis process was patented on the 6th of October 1887 by Richard "Stoney" Smith, and S. Fitton and Sons Ltd developed the brand, milling the flour and selling it along with Hovis-branded baking tins to other bakers. The name was coined in 1890 by London student Herbert Grime in a national competition set by S. Fitton and Sons Ltd to find a trading name for their patent flour which was rich in wheat germ. Grime won twenty-five pounds when he coined the word from the Latin phrase hominis vis, "the strength of man". The company became the Hovis Bread Flour Company Limited in 1898. When the abundance of certain B vitamins in wheatgerm was reported in 1924, Hovis increased in popularity.

 

The first Bisto product, in 1908, was a meat-flavoured gravy powder, which rapidly became a bestseller in Britain. It was added to gravies to give a richer taste and aroma. Invented by Messrs Roberts and Patterson, it was named "Bisto" because it "Browns, Seasons and Thickens in One". Bisto Gravy is still a household name in Britain and Ireland today, and the brand is currently owned by Premier Foods.

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