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This lid was recovered, along with most of the pot it covered, from the dig conducted by Jonathon Fowler in July. The lid was broken in two but is being reassembled and will eventually be available for display in the Ottawa House Museum.
Apparently Holloway's Ointment and Pills were the most famous of the patent medicines of the 1860's, and were shipped, as noted on the lid "throughout the world."
(Note: what follows here is not original scholarship, but an assemblage of information gathered from numerous websites)
Throughout the world it was a fruitful period for quack medicine with papers like the Launceston Examiner carrying regular advertisements for the most unlikely cures.
In the mid-west of North America if someone filled bottles with whatever concocation they could dream up they would market it as their "renowned elixir". These 'elixirs' could be home brew dosed with gunpowder, sulphur, buffalo droppings or whatever else came to hand and earned for these individuals the well deserved title of "snake oil salesmen".
"It cures what ails you" was a popular phrase but was far from fact. It is the lack of information on the advertisements, along with wild claims and false promises of medicinal properties at this time of history that makes it both amusing, and frightening.
However, one of the most successful of these purveyors of patent medicines was one Thomas Holloway (1800 - 1883).
After a period of bankruptcy and incarceration in debtors prison, apparently Holloway assumed the title "Professor" and began selling his pills and potions in England in 1837. The pills remained on sale not only throughout the British Empire but Africa, South America, Southern Europe and Turkey as late as 1905. The pills were even infiltrated into Russia where patent medicines were prohibited.
Various authorities disagreed on the precise contents of his pills, clearly based on simple ingredients, but their popularity was not affected. They were, at best, placebos whose effectiveness depended on the beliefs of the user, influenced by mass advertising.
Readers of his advertising were able to read the Earl of Aldborough's testimonial for Holloway, who had 'cured' him of a disorder of liver and stomach. The potential cures did not mention cancer as such but tumours, venereal afflictions, consumption, erysipelas, jaundice, stone and gravel were all included. His ointments and pills were reputed to cure "bad legs, bad breasts, burns, bunions, bite of mosquito and sand flies, chiego-foot, chilblains, cancers, elephantitis, fistulas, gout, glandular swellings, lumbago, piles, rheumatism, sore throats, sore heads, scurvy, tumours, ulcers, yaws, sore nipples, inveterate ulcers, chapped hands, boils, cuts and wounds"
Another 'advertorial' claimed that "thousands of persons who had been patients in large hospitals, under the care of the greatest surgeons of the day without deriving the least benefit, as a last resort use Holloway's ointment and pills, which always cures them, and frequently in as little time as a cut finger would require when treated in the usual way."
Holloway was quite the entrepreneur of his time. His ointments and digestive pills were world famous as a result of his amazing advertising. It was thanks to his good marketing and publicity that he became a millionaire.
This early ad from the 1860's reveals Holloways advertising
Holloway even went so far, early on, as to issue his own 'coins' as one individual sent a request for information to a numismatic website describing an "1857 copper coin, which is a bit bigger than a penny. One side has the head of Professor Holloway, the other side has a person sitting on a throne of some kind and the writing Holloway's Pills and Ointments, London, 1857" This request elicited the following information: "these are called hard times trade tokens or near cents. In the numismatic business they are referred to as exonumia. Some are copper and some are quite valuable, especially if they are minted on a metal other than copper. At that time in England, small change was scarce and these were also used as a cent here (the US) or a penny in the UK. The British government by 1857 was fed up with the tokens that had a denomination on them, so as not to go to jail, no denomination was used but the people accepted them as a penny anyway. In this country they often used the wording "not one cent".
Holloway was a firm believer in the power of advertising and it is with good reason he became known as the "Napolean of advertising" At one point a promotion was published in which he boasted of spending the enormous sum of 20 thousand pounds sterling annually in advertisements alone.
Some of Holloway's Promotions
Under the heading of "A Man who refused to have his Leg off", we find the following 'testimonial' from the Kilrush Advertiser, June 2nd, 1860.
"Benjamin Cox, Esquire, Magistrate, said in the Board Room at Kilrush, the he knew a man who had been in the infirmary and was actualy turned out as incurable. On his way home to Kilrush he purchased at Ennis, Holloway's Pills and Ointment for, as he said, it could not be worse with him. This man, said Cox, beame by their use as sound and as healthy as any man in the room. These celebrated Pills and Ointment, when rubbed upon the skin, will cure any wound, sore or ulcer, however long standing, if properly used according the the printed directions."
(Note: I did read somewhere that the 'directions' were printed in Chinese characters, however I have not been able to confirm that as yet)
Holloway changed his advertising from time to time, listing a variety of dangers that the pills could prevent. An example, for "Children's Complaints"
"It is not generally known, but such is the fact that children require medication oftener than their parents. Three fourths of the children die before they attain the age of eight years. Let their mothers then, be wise, and give to their children small doses of these invaluable pills once or twice every week..... The gross humours that are constantly floating about in the blood of children, the forerunners of so many complaints, will thus be expelled and the lives of thousands saved and preserved to their parents"
(Not too much hyperbole in this)
Holloway was not above using such scare tactics in his advertising and even created specific advertising for the soldiers of the Union during the Civil War.
The following is from Harper's Weekly, dated May 7, 1864 (Not all the various fonts used can be reproduced accurately here)
Soldiers of the Union!!!
Bead (sic) the following Letters from your comrades as endorsements of the WORLD-KNOWN AND WORLD-TRIED REMEDIES KNOWN AS
Professor Holloway's Pills and Ointments
You will find here unsolicited testimonials received from all parts of the country where our army of occupation is in force.
SEE TO YOUR HEALTH!!
All of you have some one interested in your welfare, then do not delay
Your Life is Valuable!!
Not only to yourselves, but to your Fathers and Mothers, Sisters, Wives and Brothers.
Then while you may, purchase your Health.
For 35 cents, 88 cents, or $1.40
Will when expended in these medicines, bring you to the greenest and ripest old age.
The following are genuine letters, on file for inspection at this office,
80 Maiden Lane, NY
"QUARTERMASTER DEPARTMENT
39th Illinois Volunteers
Folly Island, SC
November 26, 1863
Prof HOLLOWAY
80 Maiden Lane
NY
SIR Enclosed find two dollars, for which send me one dollar's worth each of your celebrated Pills and Ointment, by return mail. Please attend to this at once, for I am much in need of the above remedies. Address Lieut A W Fellows, QM
39th Illiniois Vols"
"CAMP NEAR BRANDY STATION, VA
January 7, 1864
Prof HOLLOWAY
DEAR SIR
I have heard a great deal of talk about your famous Pills, and as I never was in need of them until now I want to try them, as Diarrhoea is very prevalent at the present time: send me the worth of the enclosed.
Yours etc
Joseph Walsh
Co E, 5th Reft Excelsior Brigade
PULASKI, Tennessee"
"December 26, 1863
Prof HOLLOWAY
Dear Sir
Please find enclosed one dollar, and send me the amount in your famous Pills, as I am troubled with Dyspepsia, and seek cure.
Thomas F Turner
Co 1, 2d Iowa Infantry
Morris Island, SC"
There goes on several more "letters" requesting that orders for these "famous Pills" be filled. The article ends with the following, presumably written by the good 'professor' himself.
CAUTION. If the readers of this 'notice' can not get a box of Pills or Ointment from the drug store in his place, let him write me, 80 Maiden Lane, enclosing the amount, and I will mail it free of expense. Many dealers will not keep my medicines on hand because they can not, make as much profit as on other person's make. 35 cents, 88 cents, $1.40 per box or pot.
He didn't miss a trick.
So all this came from investigating just one broken pot lid. The ointment pots apparently came in various styles, some of which are depicted below.
They also came with varying lid designs.
These two depict a woman seated, a child by her feet and have slight variations, possibly due to the price differences. Each lid design was engraved individually before being put into production.
As stated earlier however, the good professor did not miss a trick. Even in the more prudish Victorian era he was not above a little salacious advertising for his wares. The series of pots featured below featured the woman seated, with the child at her feet holding a banner which states "Never despair". The change in the wording on the banner is not what makes these pots unique. Careful examination will reveal that the woman is depicted with a bare breast. Lest one be mislead into thinking that this was an engraver's error, the second pot depicts the woman with both breasts bare.
Pretty racy stuff for the times
So, a bit of a scalliwag the good 'professor' might have been but he did make huge amounts of money with his patent medicines. He even went so far as to start a debate in 1871 on "how to spend a quarter million or more."
Wanting to leave a more lasting legacy, he established a sanitarium at Virginia Waters in 1873, which opened in 1885, two years after his death.
He also, at his wife's suggestion, endowed a college for women, Holloway College, in 1879. Opened by Queen Victoris in 1886, three years after his death, the college still exists as the Royal Holloway University of London. Both the college and the sanitarium were designed by the architect William Henry Crossland.
This impressive architectural structure still stands among trees, gardens and playing fields, and was one of the first women's colleges in the country. It is one of the most impressive Victorian structures anywhere around London and was built between 1879 and 1887. It is built in the French Renaissance style of the Chateau at Chambor on the Loire and measures 550 x 376 feet and is built around a double courtyard. The exterior is ornate with an amazing array of chimneys, turrets, gables, balustrades, and classical urns which combine to make a castle like roofline visible over the treetops from miles away
Inside are a remarkable number of formal rooms including a chapel, a library and a picture gallery.
As Holloway's final act in pursuit of immortality he endowed this gallery with a collection of paintings worth at the time 80,000 pounds stirling (approximately $6 milliion US today). The gallery houses paintings by some of the best known Victorian artists including Landseer, Fildes, Frith, Holl and Maclise and includes Millais' famous painting "Princes in the Tower"
All this from one broken lid......what other treasures, and stories await beneath the dirt at Partridge Island?