Hungerford Arcade’s wonderful friend and author, Stuart Miller-Osborne has written this very interesting article not just on biscuit tins but on the history of Huntley & Palmers, the most famous biscuit maker in the world. Hope you enjoy it as much as we did. With of course, a nice cup of tea and a biscuit.
As one fades into early middle-age, one begins to realise that life is full of small joys. The visits of your children and grandchildren. Your adored budgie reaching its fifteenth year. Hungerford looking even more splendid in the spring sunshine that it did last year. And buying biscuits at the local supermarket.
Buying biscuits you ask, that is about as exciting as choosing celery. But not to this author for it has brought him joy since he was very small and was able to buy broken biscuits from glass topped biscuit tins with some of his pocket money.
Have you noticed that if you are offered a cup of tea then your refreshment is always accompanied by a plate of biscuits? Whether you like it or not, we are surrounded by biscuits.
Another reason I have an interest in biscuits is that when my father studied his family tree in the 1970s whilst recovering from a serious illness, he found almost by accident that we were distantly related to George Palmer (1818-1897) of Huntley & Palmers fame. Although the link was remote (a cousin’s cousin’s brother’s best friend or the like) this stirred my interest and being a rather sad teenager, I actually visited the Huntley & Palmers buildings in Reading on a sunny day in 1973.
Even today when I am dragged screaming into Tesco’s on a Friday evening I still enjoy standing in front of the biscuit shelves and choosing our biscuits for the weekend. Most of the many varieties of biscuits come pre-wrapped or in colourful cardboard cartons.
However, when a public holiday is on the horizon then the rarest of creatures arrives.
The Biscuit Tin. This creature is easily identified as the tin usually has a photograp
h of a long forgotten Scottish castle on the lid and when opened one finds a huge variety of super-biscuits. This said, I was in a supermarket in Bath recently and found a biscuit tin shaped like a Minion. My granddaughter informed me that this odd looking creature actually shared my first name. Whereas I thought they were all called Kevin.
I can remember biscuit tins from my childhood and these warm memories still comfort me. In the 1950s and the early 1960s the Christmas celebration was an excuse for families no matter how remote to get together. My mother (who is now ninety-two and still going strong) would plan the festive break from July onwards (or so it seemed). She would plan the menus with total precision. I can remember my mother’s notebooks and menus to this day. But there was one area where I was in sole charge. I was in charge of the Christmas biscuits. Usually about a month before the event my mother and I would travel to Bath or Bristol and visit one of the more upmarket shops.
Fine food for the festive period. Whilst my mother was choosing the Christmas food I was banished to the Land of Biscuits and what a joyful place that was. I had a budget of five pounds and was told to choose a sensible cross section of biscuits, remembering Aunt Min’s slightly delicate constitution.
Even in the 1950/1960s there was a considerable choice and unlike today, you did have a vague clue as to what type of biscuit you were buying, But it was the tins that amazed me. Not only did they have images of Scottish castles but also the Lake District was represented. There were images of fine railway engines steaming at speed through perfect railway stations with small children dangerously close to the platform edge. Everybody smiled even the daft parents who stood next to the newspaper bookstall. Others showed vintage cars merrily chugging through the countryside to the alarm of anything living nearby. And great ships, there were always great ships. One year there was also a small tin of biscuits showing a view of Weston-Super-Mare, but to this day I have never seen another.
After long and arduous negotiations with my mother we chose the tins and added them to our order to be delivered. Usually when our guests arrived in the weeks before Christmas they with other goodies also brought tins of biscuits and altogether we had a small shop by the New Year.
As the sun grew warmer and the air more agreeable some of these tins still survived and quite often the contents were fed to disinterested ducks and swans sometime after we had lost the Second Test Match. But what I did not know was that I was witnessing the end of an era. Families still get together at Christmas but things have changed. Everything seems more rushed. My grandchildren are unlikely to visit upmarket shops and purchase rather splendid tins of biscuits. It is likely most of the shopping will be done via the internet.
Sadly I did not retain these tins for very long although a few survived containing photographs and other treasures well into the 1990s. Our habits have changed. A tin of biscuits is no longer a treat and one can purchase quite an acceptable tin at a Pound Store. The only drawback being the rich variety of languages describing the contents.
But what of the history of the humble biscuit and with that the history of the rather less humble biscuit tin? Here in Hungerford we have a number of antique outlets and I can guarantee that at any given time you will find a biscuit tin. Many have survived, some in incredibly good condition.
As you might have guessed, sweet biscuits originated in the nineteenth century. Their ancestors were obviously the ships biscuit (also known as Hardtack). This basic foodstuff was easily transportable and was an important part of rations aboard ship. The ships biscuit can be traced back to Roman times and indeed there is a record of a “ biskit of muslin” during Richard the First’s Third Crusade (1189-92). That said one cannot imagine Richard sitting on deck chomping away at a custard cream. It appears that ships biscuits were very simple. Rather like a cracker they obviously lent themselves to long sea voyages or military campaigns. Possibly the nearest comparison to today’s biscuits is the dry dog’s biscuit. The ship’s biscuit was made from flour, water and often salt. But I suppose they were cherished in those long off days.
As with everything Victorian, biscuit production started on a small scale. Small cottage industries spung up rapidly throughout the country. One of these were Fortt’s of Bath who invented the Bath Oliver Biscuit which is still remembered. Many local bakers got in on the act and sold their biscuits in paper bags. And it was there that biscuit tins can trace their roots.
As we are all aware biscuits are rather temperamental creatures and tend to go soft if not consumed within two or three days of purchase. Whilst the local bakers did not really have this problem as their produce was sold locally the larger companies who sold their biscuits all over the country had to find an answer. If not broken by rough handling then it was likely that the biscuits would decay during transit. A solution was required.
The early tin boxes were the answer.
As I noted earlier my family has links to the Palmer side of Huntley & Palmers who by the late nineteenth century were the biggest biscuit manufacturer in the country. In the 1830s (before trains really appeared), they were already getting bigger and their early biscuits were sold from a coaching inn in Reading.
Like all good things word spread quickly and soon Huntley & Palmers were getting orders from all over the country. The company really pioneered the use of the decorated biscuit tin. But they were cleverer than that by seeing the potential of the blank surfaces of the tins as a marketing aid. What easier way to advertise your wares that to advertise on the very tin that was being purchased. One already had a captive market. Early tins were created using the tinplate method.
The material was robust and very light and could be made to standard sizes. Believe it or not, the production of tinplate had actually begun in Wales in the late seventeenth century. So by the time Huntley & Palmers came knocking the process was well and truly pinned down.
When one looks at early biscuit tins one can see that they were highly decorated. One of the favoured methods of decoration was by the Moiré metallique process. This was especially suitable for tinplate and can be easily spotted by the overall cracked effect.
This was popular during the 1840s and 1850s. The use of Lithographic printing on tins evolved in the 1860s and soon became the most popular method due to its dexterity and to an extent is still in use today. Direct printing was another favoured method but this had its limitations and was not that popular. There were probably others which have faded into history.
When selling anything in a shop or store the first rule is to make the goods look attractive. One would not buy biscuits if they looked unappetising. No matter what was inside it had to be attractive. And this is where the displays in shops came in. We have all seen photographs of Victorian shops with the windows piled high with tempting goodies. Put even the plainest of biscuits in an attractive tin and they would sell. It was as simple as that.
The early tins were usually rectangular and came in various standard sizes. These tins were initially highly decorated with flowers or various coats of arms. Some had very colourful abstract designs. Oval tins soon appeared and speciality tins such as Christmas tins followed. Very soon biscuit tins began to appear in many shapes and sizes. Illustrations often appeared on these tins with subjects such as the countries of the world. Or rather oddly pastoral hunting scenes. Historical events were popular.
Even the younger ones were not left out with specialised children’s subjects such as animals and birds represented. The list was endless.
Whenever you thought all possible shapes were exhausted the biscuit companies came up with new ones. It was the same with the illustrations used from the early lithographic representations to today’s modern photographic techniques. If I tried to list them all then I would be here for the rest of the year. And this is the appeal of collecting biscuit tins. There are so many and because of the materials used they tend to last years and years. That is until they turn up slightly aged in an antiques shop or an Arcade.
You will find them at jumble sales and boot fairs or even in charity shops. What is exciting is when you find an early Victorian tin maybe a little worse for wear. You might consider when it was used and by whom and guess at its history. A pleasant pastime when having a cup of tea. But what did surprise me when researching this article was the infinite number of biscuit tins that were actually produced. Here is a short selection.
In 1905 Huntley & Palmers produced a biscuit tin that was shaped like a bookcase complete with books. In the same year and for the following ten years our friends in Reading also produced biscuit tins shaped as satchels and kit bags and wallets.
Huntley & Palmers Ginger Nuts could be purchased in a tin which was a model of their Tribrek Motor Van. Perhaps your grandparent might have purchased one in 1937. The height of this beautiful silliness was reached with the Huntley & Palmers FA Cup Final tin of 1926 (for the record Bolton Wanderers beat Manchester City 1-0 how times have changed).
If you think of a shape or an illustration then it is likely that Huntley & Palmers or one of the other major biscuit manufacturers would have produced it.
As you can see Huntley & Palmers, is pretty close to my heart and this is not totally due to the family connection. For my sins I travel through Reading each day and each day a new building seems to spring up. The red brick railway station has vanished (apart from a couple of retaining walls on platform one). This has been replaced by a rather impressive new structure. There are pink buildings and a building shaped like a ship,
but I cannot find any trace of Huntley & Palmers buildings (although I believe that there are a few
buildings left if one looks hard enough). It seems that their presence in the town is just a memory, rather like the magnificent Suttons Seeds flower display that one saw when they left Reading by train. If my memory serves me correctly, I believe this was a flower clock although too much BR tea on my journey up from Wiltshire might have created a alternative sense of reality for me at the time.
But let us pop back to Huntley & Palmers. Believe it or not Huntley & Palmers was founded in 1822 as J. Huntley & Son by Joseph Huntley. As Reading was on the main route from London to Bath and Bristol and the West Country the sale of biscuits to travellers soon proved popular. In 1838 Joseph Huntley was forced to retire from the business due to ill-health and handed control to his son Thomas. In 1841 Thomas took on a business partner named George Palmer and Huntley & Palmers soon came into being.
These were exciting times as George soon saw the benefits that the GWR would bring to the business and the town. It was because of this brilliant man Reading became known as the biscuit town. Indeed the local football club are still referred to as The Biscuitmen. Their factory even had railway sidings that were linked to the GWR as well as their own steam locomotives (one of these has had the good fortune to have been preserved somewhere in Yorkshire).
Thomas died in 1857 and George, with the help of his brothers and later his sons, continued to take the company from strength to strength. They became biscuit makers to the Royal Family and expanded into Europe in 1865. Over 5000 people were employed by the company and because of the wide variety of the products mass production kept prices down. The Palmer family were also benevolent to the town and generously funded many initiatives including Palmer Park. Their biscuit tins which had become quite collectable were exported throughout the British Empire. Captain Scott even took the biscuits with him on his expedition to the South Pole in 1910.
Huntley & Palmers carried on until the dreaded 1970s when following a merger between Crawford’s, McVities and McFarlane Lang the Reading company was forced to amalgamate with Peek Frean and Jacobs to form Associated Biscuits. This was the beginning of the end and in 1976 production ceased in Reading altogether when Nabisco acquired Associated Biscuits.
In 1989 Nabisco sold Associated Biscuits to a company named Danone. In a way Huntley & Palmers died long before 1989 which is incredibly sad. The history of this company is well represented in the Reading Museum and there are a number of books on the subject.
Huntley & Palmers sadly went the way of a lot of great British companies. First being forced to amalgamate and then being sold to an American giant and then onwards to a French company. I have not consciously visited any of the Huntley & Palmers buildings since my initial visit but am aware that a lot of them have now vanished. As with the Swindon Railway Works these are ghosts from the past. The world has moved on.
However, there is a lasting legacy and that is the biscuit tins that the company produced.
There are so many to collect that one is spoilt for choice. I often see them here in Hungerford at quite reasonable prices (obviously other factors contribute such as rarity and the overall condition).
Last summer I saw a rather sorry looking tin dating back the 1897 Jubilee for only a few shillings at a jumble sale in Devon. But as we were camping it was not such a good idea to purchase it as the only thing it was likely to have collected on that holiday was rainwater.
The great thing about biscuit tins apart from their history, their design and their shapes is that you buy them empty. Which means if you are a collector of other smaller items then these have a ready-made home. It is all rather satisfying really.
Happy Hunting