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Catalogue description BEECHAMS PILLS CO. LTD
This record is held by St Helens Archive Service
| Reference: | BP |
|---|---|
| Title: | BEECHAMS PILLS CO. LTD |
| Description: |
BUSINESS (INCLUDING SUBSIDIARY COMPANIES) + PERSONAL RECORDS; THREE DIMENSIONAL OBJECTS AND AUDIO RECORDINGS. |
| Date: | 1820 - 1994 |
| Arrangement: |
CONTENTS BP/1 BUSINESS SECTION BP/1/1 Miscellaneous historical items BP/1/2 Products and ingredients BP/1/3 Legal documentation BP/1/4 Financial documentation BP/1/5 Personnel BP/1/6 Advertising (Examples of advertisements) BP/1/7 Anacona Motor Company BP/1/7/2 Beechams Pills Co. Ltd. Abroad BP/1/8 Photographs of buildings and plant BP/1/9 Miscellaneous BP/2 BEECHAM FAMILY - Personal papers BP/2/1 Photographs and portraits of individual members of the family BP/2/2 Correspondence BP/2/3 Property BP/2/4 Hobbies and pastimes BP/2/5 Miscellaneous BP/3 LEDGERS AND GENERAL FILES BP/3/1 Sales ledgers BP/3/2 Pricing, costs etc. BP/3/3 Advertising (Schedules, expenditure etc). BP/3/4 Packaging documentation and packing methodology BP/3/5 Trade mark records and slogans BP/3/6 Motor accounts BP/3/7 Fabric, planning and maintenance of Beecham's factory, St. Helens BP/3/8 Minutes of Board meetings BP/3/9 Company re-organisations BP/4 SUBSIDUARY COMPANIES BP/4/1 Cephos BP/4/2 Capsuloids BP/4/3 Cicfa BP/4/4 Harwood Chemists BP/4/5 Iron Jelloids Ltd. BP/4/6 Natural Chemicals Ltd. BP/4/7 New Skin Company Ltd. BP/4/8 Phensic Ltd. BP/4/9 Phosferine Co. Ltd. BP/4/10 Thermogene Co. Ltd. BP/4/11 Veno Drug Co. Ltd. BP/4/12 Yeast Vite Ltd. BP/4/13 Eno Co. Ltd. BP/4/14 A. F. Sherley & Co. Ltd. BP/4/15 Hazelwell Products Ltd. BP/4/16 Lintox Ltd. BP/4/17 Macleans Ltd. Manufacturing chemists BP/4/18 John Morgan Richards & Co. (Lactopeptine) BP/4/19 Covent Garden Estate Co. Ltd. BP/4/20 Scott and Bourne Ltd. BP/5 THREE DIMENSIONAL OBJECTS Deposited as an integral part of the archive BP/5/1-4 Examples of early pill bottles, cartons, toothpaste, medals, tins etc. BP/5/5 Product packaging (Modern examples) BP/6 ADVERTISING RECORDS Sound recordings re-recorded on to cassette BP/7 MISCELLANEOUS RECORDINGS RELATING TO BEECHAMS BP/8 Mr. J. C. MATHER, Chief Chemist. Files |
| Held by: | St Helens Archive Service, not available at The National Archives |
| Language: | English |
| Creator: |
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| Physical description: | 8 SUB FONDS |
| Access conditions: |
However SmithKline Beecham still currently use the data within these records so consequently their use is partially restricted. They may not be used by anyone under the age of 18 years but may be used by accredited researchers who must provide proof of identity. If the resulting research is to be published prior permission must be sought in writing from SmithKline Beecham. SmithKline Beecham retains the copyright for all these records. |
| Immediate source of acquisition: |
These archives have been deposited by SmithKline Beecham and are now the property of St. Helens Metropolitan Borough Council, Local History and Archives Library who have undertaken to store and conserve them. |
| Custodial history: |
Deposited by SmithKline Beecham between 1990 and 1995. The first items to be deposited were those in Sections BP/1 and 2. They were originally transferred to St. Helens Museum and used in a travelling exhibition. Once over all this material was deposited at the Local History and Archives Library but unfortunately we could not ascertain which departments many of these records came from, hence the artificial categorisation. A similar problem was faced with the Ledgers and General Files which were deposited from a cellar at Beechams. The only records which emanated from specifically named sections were those of Product Packaging and the Files from the office of Mr. J. C. Mather. The archive generally is exceedingly small as many records seem to have been destroyed years ago. For instance it is said that the majority of the advertising posters and handbills were discarded some twenty years ago when a foreman was seeking extra storage space! |
| Subjects: |
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| Administrative / biographical background: |
Thomas Beecham 1820-1907 Thomas Beecham was born on 3rd. December 1820 into a poor family who lived in the rural village of Curbridge near Whitney in Oxfordshire. Although his parents sent him to school at the age of six, further additions to the family meant he had to leave them when he was only eight and start to earn a living; a situation not uncommon in the rest of the country at this period. One of the many jobs he undertook was that of tending sheep which was a poorly paid and lonely job. Treatment of children in those days was harsh. They were left exposed to the elements and often went hungry. The life of the average labourer was gruelling. Excessive punishment could be expected for the least offence, with deportation and even hanging for poaching or similar misdemeanors. Doctors were beyond the 'purse' of most working-class people who thus had to rely on herbs and salves. In these, Thomas's mother, Sarah, had considerable knowledge and skill. Shepherding moulded Thomas's nature and he began to use his knowledge of herbs in treating animals. By his mid-teens he had established quite a reputation in Cropredy as a herbalist who could treat all kinds of ailments. In 1840 Thomas left Cropredy and went to stay with his Uncle William in Kidlington near Woodstock in Oxfordshire. By this time he had developed his pill formulae but supplemented his income with casual work as a postman and a jobbing gardener. Eventually he became an itinerant peddler carrying his pills and cures in a pack from village to village and selling them at the local markets. In 1847 Thomas moved north, first to Liverpool where he married Jane Evans, a Welsh woman some eight years his senior. The ceremony took place at Liverpool Parish Church on 26th May 1847 and they set up home in Wigan. The address on the Medical Licence stamped 1st. September 1847 is Wallgate and was, perhaps, the first indication of Thomas's intention to expand his business, for although a licence was not required when peddling pills by pack, it was essential for packaging articles and laying claim to a unique recipe. At this time Thomas was producing four products - Herbal Pills, Female's Friend, Royal Toothpowder and Golden Tooth Tincture. He was a born salesman and could be seen dispensing his pills whilst wearing a shepherd's smock and standing under a vast umbrella. In 1857 Thomas opened shop premises in Wigan which enabled him to carry on a mail-order service and obviated the need for peddling. It was here that tragedy struck. Jane Beecham, his wife, was illiterate and one Saturday a young girl named Elizabeth Smith entered the shop and requested a pennysworth of laudanum. Jane, who served her, omitted to remove the previous label from the bottle or to mark it appropriately. 14 weeks later the girl's brother accidentally overdosed with the laudanum and died. Although a verdict of accidental death was returned, the public of Wigan were not so ready to forgive. Thus it was that in 1860 the Beechams moved to Milk Street, St. Helens. Here Thomas concentrated exclusively on the sale of his pills. His mail-order service was expanding but once again he had to rely on market trade. Thomas's herbal products were first advertized in the St. Helens Intelligencer, 6th August 1859 and it was around that tiem the famous phrase "worth a guinea a box" was born. Attributed to Mrs. Ellen Butler "a lady of good family and business aptitude" it is claimed she would enthusiastically repeat the phrase to anyone who would listen. Whatever its origin it became the slogan of the company and before the turn of the century Thomas was the largest advertizer in the United Kingdom. By 1863 Thomas and Jane had parted and gone their separate ways. Business continued to flourish and Thomas moved to Westfield Streets, St. Helens. In 1864 he enrolled as a member of the United Society of Chemists and Druggists and around this time Thomas dropped his "Doctor" title, although the use of Doctor on a marketed product was not officially forbidden until 1944. When Thomas's son Joseph finished his schooling at fifteen he joined in the business although he had already been Thomas's right hand for several years. Business was now booming; in 1865 the gross takings were £2,532. 19s. 5d. and by 1867 they had almost doubled to £4,556.0s.10d, With customers as far afield as York, Exeter and Dumfries. Thomas worked a fourteen hour day and every transaction was meticulously entered into the 'green order book'. In 1872 Jane died and the following year Thomas now fifty-two married Sarah Pemberton aged twenty-nine. By now the business had expanded so much it became necessary to employ full-time staff. Two of the first to be employed were William Moss, a teenage boy engaged as a packer and an eleven-year-old boy Tom Oldham. These two remained with Beechams for many years, Moss eventually becoming Works Manager whilst Tom Oldham became personal groom to the family. In 1876 Thomas acquired more property in Westfield Street where he started to erect his first factory. He moved to a new home, Hill House on Croppers Hill, in the summer of 1877 with his son, William, Joseph by now being married. His wife, Sarah had died the previous May and in September 1879 Thomas married for the third time, after a whirlwind courtship, to a Mrs. Mary Sawell, but unfortunately the union seemed doomed to failure almost from the start. By summer of 1881 the Beechams were installed in Mursley Hall, Buckinghamshire, and for a while Thomas left the factory in favour of the country life. However, soon he returned north and his prolonged absences from home did little to improve the deteriorating relationship between himself and Mary. The Beecham fortunes continued to soar over the next decade. Some indication of the commercial enterprise in St. Helens can be judged by the fact that four hundredweight of pills were being turned out daily. By 1884 nineteen staff were employed which, by August, had swollen to fifty-seven. The new factory built in Westfield Street, St. Helens and costing £30,000 was the last word in efficiency and elegance. Originally surmounted by a clock tower which had three dials, a fourth was added especially for the Grrenbank area where the poorer people resided. Thomas had come a long way since the simply constructed pill counting machine he had devised in the early days. This had now been replaced by a machine operated by a water motor and capable of counting and filling three thousand boxes of pills a day. In 1889 Thomas gave Joseph a half share in the business although to all intents and purposes Joseph had been in control for the past ten years. Joseph was a great believer in advertizing, using many different avenues to bring Beechams Pills to public attention and had even begun to court the overseas market. Rumour has it that a generous donation of hymn books given by Beechams to an impecunious parish in South Shields was found to have in its Christmas section :- Hark. The herald angels sing Beechams pills are just the thing For easing pain and mothers mild Two for adults one for a child Thomas hotly denied the story, but correct or otherwise, peddlers were nevertheless hired to hum the tune up and down the country whilst children chanted it through the streets of St. Helens. Another illustration of Beecham ingenuity was a slim booklet entitled "Beechams Help to Scholars" written in 1899. Dispatched on request to schoolmasters, it soon became a standard work and was especially useful to poor children. Information was comprehensive and included geographical definitions, foreign words and phrases, and an international table of automatic weights of the chemical elements. By the first year four million had been sent out and by 1927, thirty-seven million. By 1959 some forty-seven and a quarter million had been distributed. Almost as popular were Beecham's views which were photo-folios containing twenty-four scenes of various towns or regions. Beechams oracles were particularly ingenious. Appearing as plain pieces of paper, they when ignited, revealed a famous face such as the Prince of Wales or the Marquis of Salisbury. Equally as popular were Beechams Music Folios; twenty volumes of piano music which were especially appealing in the days when home entertainment centred around the family piano. The business continued to expand both at home and abroad and the factory in Westfield Street was extended in 1934 and again in 1948 and 1956. The Beechams were good and fair employers who demanded one hundred percent loyalty and obedience from their employees. In return they provided sick pay for their workers and treated them to day trips. Also available for recreational hours was a billiards room where free tea and biscuits were served. In 1895 Thomas retired to his final home, "Wychwood", which he built in Norwood Avenue, Southport. He styled himself as a 'Lancashire Gentleman' - a compliment to his adopted county. During his lifetime he had lived to see four monarchs reign and many changes for the good - particularly the laws which stopped the exploitation of children inthe workplace. Thomas died on 6th April 1907 of pulmonary congestion, at the age of eighty-six, and was buried at the Borough Cemetery in St. Helens |
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