Antique aqua blue glass Wampole bottle with a Garton glass
stopper. Nice pairing of aqua blue
glass, even though they were not originally intended for each other. The bottle is a Wampole tall medicine bottle
in excellent condition, minor fogginess of glass and good colour. No chips or cracks. The word “Wampole” is embossed on one side. The stopper is also of good colour and excellent
condition with some small bubbles from manufacturing on the stem. The word “Garton” is embossed on the
top. The Gartons stopper was from a
bottle of sauce which was the precursor to HP. Please see all photos as they comprise part of
the description. The bottle is 8 ¼ inches by 3 inches wide by 2 inches thick.
The stopper is 1 ¼ inches long with a 1 inch diameter top.
“One of the smaller items is a bottle stopper, with
Gartons embossed upon it. This stopper carries an interesting tale of changing
fortunes. Frederick Gibson Garton was a Nottingham grocer who purchased a sauce
recipe from Hoe Brothers sauce manufacturers of Bottesford. Garton wanted to
name this sauce HP after hearing that that it was was being served in the
Houses of Parliament, although it continued to be sold as F.G. Gartons Sauce.
Garton sold the rights for his sauce to Edwin Moore of
the Midlands Vinegar Company in the early 1900s in exchange for £150 and the
settlement of unpaid debts. It then began to be produced at Aston Cross in
Birmingham. Frederick Garton continued as a grocer and wine & spirit
merchant and died in 1942 in West Bridgford.
Gartons Sauce was relabeled, including the famous
image of the Houses of Parliament, as HP Sauce in 1903 and a vigorous
promotional campaign followed. Edwin Moore retired in 1921 and in 1924 the
British Share Holders Trust bought the Midland Vinegar Company, and
subsequently floated it as HP Sauce Ltd. In 1930 they merged with the Lea &
Perrins company for whom they had been the distributors.
The Imperial Tobacco firm began to diversify in to
other industries in the early 1960s, HP Sauce Ltd was purchased in 1967
followed by National Canning, the owner of Smedley foods. Their combination
passed the popular sauce to Smedley HP Foods in 1972. Imperial Foods sale to
Hanson Trust in 1986 resulted in the sale of the HP Sauce brand again,
eventually becoming part of Groupe Danone. In June 2005 Heinz bought HP Foods
from Danone. Following a referral to the Competitions Commission in October
2005 the takeover was approved in April 2006. In May of that year Heinz
announced that production of HP Sauce would be moved to the Netherlands.
Despite protests the HP factory at Aston in Birmingham closed in March 2007 and
was demolished in the Summer. The HP Sauce sign from the factory now resides
with Birmingham Museums and although not on permanent display it may be seen by
prior arrangement at their Collections Centre.”
We
are a charitable organization seller and as such, we recycle our packing
materials as much as possible. In addition, we attempt to describe our donated
articles as completely and accurately as we can. In most cases we are unable to
provide provenance. Also, we package our
items extremely well and cannot guarantee no breakage through shipping fragile
items. Thank you for supporting our
store.