Holloway’s Ointment Pot Oxford Street

Victorian

Circa 1868–1881 | England

An antique ointment pot advertising the treatment for gout and rheumatism by the Thomas Holloway (see The Gen). This pot bears the address for 533 Oxford Street which was the premises for Thomas Holloway’s business from 1868 to 1881. Transfer printed in black on cream earthenware.

DIMENSIONS: Height 3.8 cm, Width 4.8 cm.

CONDITION: In very good condition, with wear commensurate with antique age and use of such a piece. There are a couple of little flakes to the base edge. These all add to the history of the piece and wonder of the stories it could tell.

REFERENCES: An example of a similar pot is held at the State Library of NSW. 

~~~~~~~~~~~

THE GEN

“In an age when fair trading laws were non-existent, advertising claims frequently bordered on the fantastic ... ointments and miraculous salves to cure ulcers, piles, rheumatism, scrofula and even cancer; pomades guaranteed to promote luxuriant growth of the hair and prevent baldness; quack medicines capable of curing ailments of every description, when, in fact, the contents (usually rich in alcohol and opiates) were better designed to cause many of the afflictions they claimed to cure. Ailing Victorian ladies suffering from “sore breasts, fistulas, ulcers and gatherings of all kinds” found solace in a remarkable salve prepared by Dr. Holloway. (He became a millionaire but, possibly guilt-ridden about the way he had acquired his fortune, was persuaded to part with some of his money and built a lunatic asylum in Surrey and also a young ladies college in Egham, now the Royal Holloway College of London University). 

Holloway’s expenditure on advertising and showmanship knew no limits. By 1842 he was spending £5,000 a year promoting his products and not long afterwards he spent some time in a debtors jail for money he owed to the Times newspaper. After his release he never read the Times again.

In 1883 (the year he died) he had spent £50,000 on advertising from as far afield as China to Peru and even ‘greased a few palms’ in Egypt so that he could slap up a slogan on the Great Pyramid reading: “Take Holloways Pills”.” (The Advertising Art of Printed Pot Lids, Roger Green and David Lewis, Old Bottles and Treasure Hunting, 1979, p. 7)

~~~~~~~~~~~