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Tea CardsBrooke Bond Collection

Issue 3 // March 2013

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Art DirectorBrooke Bond

Editor

Arthur Brooke

WriterArthur Bond

Graphic DesignerLouise Mothersdale

Web DesignerLouise Mothersdale

PublisherUnilever

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contents

History 4 Famous People 6 Adventurers and 10Explorers Features of the World 14 Coming Soon 186

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With the ending of tea control in 1952, Brooke Bond in Britain

entered a period of real challenge. In the preceding years, profits had

been carefully husbanded so that at this moment the company was

well balanced to take advantage of the situation. It was a question

of who was awake and ready and who was still asleep on the day

tea rationing ceased. The Brooke Bond sales team led by Vernon

Blackwell and supported by all the firm’s reserves and manpower

had in fact been ready and raring to go with all campaigns worked

out for some considerable time.

The moment coincided with the election of a new chairman -

John Brooke. With his deputy chairman, Thomas D Rutter, and the

salesroom in the hands of two tried and experienced tea men,

Leslie Gray and Cyril W Dudley; the company finances managed

by Laurence Green and Conrad Warner; and the sales side under

the direction of Vernon Blackwell assisted by Wilfred Payne and A

D Dorrington, John Brooke had a staff that mingled tradition and

imagination, innovation and reliability.

In the next decade, the most striking developments were in

the competitive fields of advertising and promotion. First a series

of colour advertisements in magazines depicted tea cultivation

and production and told ‘The Story of Tea’. For the Coronation of

Queen Elizabeth II in 1953 it had been planned - as at previous

coronations - to produce appropriately decorated canisters of tea.

At almost the last moment, metal shortages made this impossible.

With customary Brooke Bond ingenuity, Vernon Blackwell

inaugurated ‘coronation tea parties’. In exchange for thirty packet

wrappers, the organisers of street tea parties throughout the

country were given a contribution towards the cost of the festivities.

(In 1969 there was no such shortage to prevent production of

decorated canisters to commemorate the investiture of the Prince

of Wales at Caernarvon.)

Berkshire Printing produced a million Union jack paper hats,

bearing the company name. It seemed that all the children in Britain

were celebrating the new era. In 1954 another successful promotion

was launched. Before the war, cigarette cards had been collected in

their millions. They were small rectangles of coloured pasteboard

inserted in cigarette packets. The tobacco manufacturers had not

reintroduced the cards after the war. Now Brooke Bond inaugurated

‘picture cards’.

Enquiries among leading printers produced no response. It

seemed that British printers had lost the capacity or the wish to

print such cards. So the job went to the Berkshire Printing Company

who, starting from scratch, made a fine job of printing many

millions of cards to the highest standards of colour work. Neville

historyIn 1869 Arthur Brooke opened his first shop with his £400 savings. Called ‘Brooke Bond & Company’ there was no ‘Mr Bond’: the name

‘seemed to him to sound well’. His shop opened at 29 Market Street, Manchester, England, selling tea, coffee and sugar only - for cash

over the counter. His first cash book still exists, and shows that he made a profit in his first week by putting his own share back into the

business. The story goes on, and we continue with how cards were introduced and how advertising and promoting of Brooke Bond built

the company to where they are today.

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Brooke and Phillips Engineering devised a

mechanical method of inserting the cards in

tea packets. The first series of picture cards,

their subjects drawn from natural history,

were produced with the assistance of the

eminent naturalist and author Miss Frances

Pitt and illustrated British birds.

Further series followed, on such

subjects as wild flowers, astronomy, fish,

butterflies and African and Asian wild life.

Later, transport, the motor car, and British

costume were added. The Brooke Bond

picture cards established themselves rapidly

as collectors’ favourites and as educational

aids, and by 1968 the annual distribution of

the cards had topped 720 millions.

Another major promotion was

introduced in 1955. Following the

success over many years of local schools

competitions organized by Brooke Bond, a

National Schools Competition of art and

essay-writing was launched, with a judging

panel of headmasters, and a first prize of

a journey to the tea estates of East Africa,

India or Ceylon.

A most attractive series of

advertisements illustrated in finely drawn

pictures, the ‘little red vans’ round and about

in the towns and cities of Britain, and also

became collectors items.

The pressure of space in the old

Goulston Street headquarters had now

become unendurable and in December

1956 the head, office and salesroom moved

into a new block Watling House, Cannon

Street. Thus Brooke Bond returned to the

City of London. That year also, the company

made a new agreement with Bushells Pty

Ltd., the largest tea and coffee distributors in

Australia and New Zealand, to supply bulk

tea. Brooke Bond also provided substantial

new capital for the Australian Company and

obtained a twenty per cent interest in it.

With the inauguration of independent

television in Britain in September 1955,

Brooke Bond became one of the early

companies successfully to exploit the

advertising possibilities of the new medium.

The company had already achieved a

high reputation for the quality of its

advertising films, mainly documentaries

based on the growing of tea. It was Bill

Barter of Spottiswoods the advertising

agents - whose chairman was R G Morris

- who suggested that chimpanzees might

be employed to make an amusing and

unusual television commercial. The first

advertisements appeared in 1956 at

Christmastime. Chimps were associated

with tea: over many years the ‘chimps’

tea party at London Zoo had been an

unfailing attraction for children. The first

two television commercials for Brooke

Bond - ‘Stately Homes’ and the ‘Chimps Tea

Party’ - were made by the Marquis troop of

chimps trained for cabaret by Gene Detroy.

A further series followed using chimps

recruited from Billy Smart’s circus. These

commercials became tremendously popular,

with voices provided by Peter Sellers, Bruce

Forsyth and Bob Monkhouse.

Soon the Brooke Bond chimps were in

demand for public appearances. George

Cansdale of the London Zoo enabled the

company to discover the chimps owned

and trained by Miss Molly Badham, and

these began to make merchandising tours

round the country, drawing huge crowds as

they ‘helped’ to open supermarkets and to

launch new stores.

The Brooke Bond chimps certainly sold

more tea. Their television commercials

were carefully linked with point-of sale

promotions in shops and stores. By 1957

the advertising budget was £680000 but

this was more than offset by increased

sales: the company could claim that one in

every four families in Britain was drinking

Brooke Bond tea. The chimps appeared live

at Saturday morning film shows staged by

the company’s own projection units, which,

during weekdays and evenings, showed

documentaries to schools and women’s and

other institutes all over Britain.

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Set consists of:Lord Shaftsbury

Sir Edwin Landseer

Alfred Lord Tennyson

Charles Robert Darwin

William Ewart Gladstone

Benjamin Disraeli

Charles Dickens

David Livingstone

Lord Lister

William Booth

Lewis Carroll

General Charles George Gordon

Sir William Gilbert and Sir Arthur Sullivan

Thomas John Barnado

W.G. Grace

Robert Louis Stevenson

Cecil Rhodes

George Bernard Shaw

James Keir Hardie

Lord Baden-Powell

Sir Edward Elgar

Mrs. Emmeline Pankhurst

David Lloyd George

Edith Cavell

Herbert George Wells

famous peopleRobert Falcon Scott

Sir Harry Lauder

Ralph Vaughan-Williams

Sir Winston Churchill

Lord Nuffield

Augustus John

Sir Thomas Beecham

Sir Alexander Fleming

Baron Birkett of Ulverston

Viscount Montgomery of Alamein

John Logie Baird

TE Lawrence aka Lawrence of Arabia

Charles Spencer Chaplin

Admiral of the Fleet

The Earl Mountbattern

Sir Francis Chister

Amy Johnson

Sir Laurence Olivier

Sir Frank Whittle

Dame Alicia Markova

Kathleen Ferrier

Benjamin Britten

Sir Stanley Matthews

Sir Alfred Ramsey

Pat Smythe & Roger Gilbert Bannister

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Set consists of:John de Plano Carpini c. 1180-1252

Marco Polo 1254-1324

Leif Ericsson Tenth Century A.D.

Ibn Batuta 1304-1368

Francis Xavier 1506-1552

Christopher Columbus 1451-1506

Vasco da Gama c. 1460-1524

Ferdinand Magellan 1480-1521

Hernan Cortes 1485-1547

Francisco Pizarro c. 1474-1541

Francisco de Orellana c. 1511-1546

Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca1490-1557

Sir Francis Drake c. 1543-1596

John Davis c. 1550-1605

Jacques Cartier 1491-1557

Rene Robert Cavalier 1643-1687

Abel Janszoon Tasman 1603-1659

William Dampier 1652-1715

James Cook 1728-1779

Mungo Park 1771-1806

Rene Caillie 1799-1838

Sir Alexander Mackenzie 1764-1820

Meriwether Lewis 1774-1809

William Clark 1770-1838

Richard Burton 1821-1890

John Hanning Speke 1827-1864

adventurers & explorers

David Livingstone 1813-1873

Sir Henry Morton Stanley 1841-1904

John McDouall Stuart 1815-1866

Alexander von Humboldt 1769-1859

Henry Walter Bates 1825-1892

Baron Nils Adolf Nordenskiold 1832-

1901

Fridtjof Nansen 1860-1930

Robert Edwin Peary 1856-1920

Roald Amundsen 1872-1928

Robert Falcon Scott 1863-1912

Ernest Henry Shackleton 1874-1922

Sir John William Alcock 1892-1919

Sir Arthur Whitten Brown 1886-1948

Charles Lindbergh 1902

Amy Johnson 1903-1941

Thor Heyerdahl 1914

Alain Bombard 1924-

Sir Edmund Percival Hilary 1919

Norgay Tenzing 1914-

Joshua Slocum 1844-c.1910

Sir Francis Chichester 1901-1972

Wilfrid Patrick Thesiger 1910

Walter William Herbert 1934

Piccard 1884-1962

Jacques Cousteau 1910

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Here’s an interesting fact, Red Rose

“borrowed” a series or two from England.

Brooke Bond had been putting tea cards in

the tea long before Red Rose considered

it. I believe it was the success of the British

premium promotion that encouraged it

be tried in the Americas. There were many

successful British series to choose from but

a lot were geared solely toward the British

interest. Trees in Britain, British Butterflies,

British Costume and the like would have a

limited interest in the Americas.

Red Rose did adapt some of the

concepts though. Tropical Birds was a British

set that Red Rose did as well. Not a picture

is alike although a lot of the names of the

birds are duplicated It kinda makes sense,

doesn’t it. There are only so many different

tropical birds. Wildlife in Danger is the same.

Not a matching picture.

There are a couple of near exact

matches. One is the African Animals series.

Both British and Red Rose match on

almost all paintings and the texts are similar.

Another near match is the Transport(ation)

Through the Ages series. That is an

interesting one to dive into.

Brooke Bond sold Red Rose a long time

ago (‘85 for Canada and ‘90 for the US) but

they issued cards in England up until 1999.

In South Africa, three sets were issued.

Some count a variation in the first series as

a second series making the total four.

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Set consists of:Thomson Falls - Kenya

Abu Simbel - Egypt

Table Mountian - South Africa

The Saudi Arabian Desert

The Giza Pyramids - Egypt

Ol Doinyo Lengai - Tanzania

Kilimanjaro - Tanzania

Mount Rushmore - Dakota

Mesa Verde Ruins - Colorado

The Niagra Falls

Iguassu Falls - Argentina/Brazil Border

Garden of the Gods - Arizona

Looking Glass Rock - Utah

Devils Tower - Wyoming

The Grand Canyon - Colorado

Bryce Canyon - Utah

Dead Horse Point - Utah

Norris Geyser - Wyoming

Yellowstone Hot Springs - Wyoming

Crater Lake - Oregon

Luray Caverns - Virginia

The Pyramid of Kukulcan - Mexico

The Andes Mountains - South America

The Taj Mahal - India

Cave of the Winds - Sarawak

world featuresMount Everest - Nepal

Mount Fujiyama - Japan

Angkor - Kampuchea

The Great Wall of China

Seven Sisters - Sussex

Forth Suspension Bridge - Scotland

Giants Causeway - Northern Ireland

Fingals Cave - Isle of Staffa. Scotland

Stonehenge - Wiltshire

Parthenon - Greece

The River Rhine

The Rhine Waterfalls - Switzerland

Mont Blanc - French/Italian Border

The Matterhorn - Switzerland

The Dolomites - Italy

Venice - The Sinking City

The Leaning Tower of Pisa - Italy

Durdle Dor - Dorset

Logan Stone - Dartmoor

Ofaerufoss Eldgja - Iceland

An Old Iceberg - Greenland

Iceland Floating Offshore - Greenland

Antartic Glacier

Ayers Rock - Australia & Rotorua Pohutu

Geyser - New Zealand.Cecil Rhodes

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About the setBrooke Bond of England was the parent

company of Red Rose for all 17 of the

card series. This parent company also

issued tea cards in its tea in Ireland, South

Africa, Rhodesia and of course, England. In

England, fifty-six different sets (along with

many variations) were issued. All of the

wonderful, interesting things that can be

collected in Red Rose have counterparts in

the British series. There are of course, the

cards and their variations.

Brooke Bond was Red Rose’s parent

company back when the tea cards were

issued. Brooke Bond sold tea and issued

cards in Great Britain, Ireland, Canada, the

US, South Africa and Rhodesia. The only

two Red Rose / Brooke Bond holdings were

in Canada and the US. Other Brooke Bond

companies are listed here as well as many

other non Brooke Bond card issuers. Let’s

not forget the dairy issues, sweets, cereal

and cigarette cards too. Meat? Yes, meat!

Single Cards Measure 69mm x 37mm

coloured numbered series of 50 issued

in 1984, backs printed in green. Double

Cards Measure 69mm x 74mm coloured

numbered series of 25 issued in 1994, 2

pictures per card numbered 1-5, 2-6, 3-7,

4-8, 9-13, 10-14, 11-15, 12-16, 17-21, 18-22,

19-23, 20-24, 25-50, 26-30, 27-31, 28-32, 29-

33, 34-38, 35-39, 36-40, 37-41, 42-46, 43-47,

44-48 & 45-49. The card backs are printed

in green.

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coming soon

Small WondersFeaturing: Cactus, Stinging Nettle, Sundew, Fern Frond, Magnolia Leaf, Flower, Beech Leaf,

Horse Chestnut, Fern, Dandelion Seeds, Honeybee, Butterfly, Earthworm, Spider, Moth,

Daddy Long Legs, Honeycomb, Tree Hopper, Butterfly, The Caterpillar, Cuckoo Spit,

Horsefly, Silkworm, Wasp, Aphids, Starfish, Mussels, Frog Spawn, Water Flea, Fish Scales,

Fox, Hedgehog, Chameleon, Human Skin, Toad, Soap Bubbles, Snow Flake, Domestic

Sugar, Mould & Wheat.

History of AviationFeaturing: Montgolfier Baloon, Pilcher Hang-glider, Lebaudy Airship, Wright Flyer, Cornu

Helicopter, Maurice Farman Biplane, Bleriot Monoplane, Sikorsky Bolshoi Airliner, Avro

504, Fokker D.VII, Handley Page 0/400, Junkers F-13, Cierva Autogiro, de Havilland

Moth, Hawker Hart, Kronfeld’s Wien Sailplane, Handley Page HP.42, Supermarine S.6B,

Douglas DC-3, Hindenburg Airship, Short Empire Flying Boat, Boeing Stratoliner, Heinkel

178, Gloster-Whittle E.28/39, de Havilland Mosquito, Supermarine Spitfire, Sikorsky

R-4 Helicopter, Avro Lancaster, Messerschmitt 262, Airspeed Horsa, Messerschmitt 163

Komet, Grumman Avenger, Mig-15, Vickers Viscount, Avro Vulcan, de Havilland Comet

I, Short S.C.1, de Havilland Canada Otter, McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom, Hawker

Siddeley 125, Boeing Chinook, North American X-15, Wallis WA-120 Autogyro, Canadair

CL-84, BAC/Brequet Jaguar, BAC/Aerospatiale Concorde, Hawker Siddeley Harrier,

General Dynamics F-111, Lockheed Tristar & Northrop HL-10.

The History of the Motor CarFeaturing: 1770 Cugnot’s 3-Wheel Steam Tractor, 1885 Benz 3-Wheeler 1.7 Litres,

1895 Panhard Et Levassor 4HP 1.3 Litres, 1898 Renault 1.5 HP 240 CC, 1899 La Jamais

Contente Electric Car, 1901 Mercedes 35 HP 6 Litres, 1902 Napier 35 HP Gordon

Bennett Racing Car 6.4 Litres, 1903 Lanchester 12 HP 4 Litres, 1903 Oldsmobile 5 HP

Curved Dash 1.5 Litres, 1907 Rolls-Royce 40/50 HP Silver Ghost 7/7.4 Litres, 1908 Ford

Model T.2.9 Litres, 1911 Fiat S.74.

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The Brooke Bond Tea Card Collection // 123 Book Street, London, L12 3DNwww.thebrookebondcollection.com // hello@thebrookebondcollection.com // 01234 567890

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