Samuel Allsopp & Sons Labels

Samuel Allsopp & Sons labels make for a very interesting, though rather expensive, addition to a commercial overprint collection. In 1860 the brewing company of Samuel Allsopp & Sons was authorised by the Inland Revenue to use the current 1d Inland Revenue stamp se-tenant with a strip of three Allsopp labels, for the purpose of recording excise duties and issuing receipts. They were supplied in blocks of eight containing two such strips which were perforated vertically down the middle and horizontally through the right-hand block of four. The left-hand pair of the strip was overprinted in black with lines for entering the date, amount received in words and figures, the discount and the name and address of the customer, and this part was retained by the company. The corresponding right half was given to the customer as a form of receipt. Further details about the Allsopp labels can be found in Stanley Gibbons Great Britain specialised stamp catalogue volume 1.

The origins of the company go back to the 1740s when an innkeeper in the town of Burton-on-Trent in Staffordshire called Benjamin Wilson, brewed beer for his own premises and sold some to other innkeepers. Over the next 60 years, Wilson and his son and successor, also called Benjamin, cautiously built up the business and became the leading brewer in Burton. In 1807 Benjamin Junior sold the brewery to his nephew Samuel Allsopp for £7,000. After Samuel's death in 1838, his sons Charles and Henry continued the brewery as Allsopp & Sons. In 1859 the brothers built a new brewery near the railway station and by 1861 the company was the second largest brewer after Bass. In 1882 Henry Allsopp's son, Samuel Charles Allsopp, took over the business. The company was incorpoated as Samuel Allsopp & Sons Limited in 1887. Under Samuel Allsopp the company struggled and went into receivership in 1911. The company's capital was restructured and it continued trading. In 1935 Samuel Allsopp & Sons merged with Ind Coope Limited to form Ind Coope & Allsopp Limited. The Allsopp name was dropped in 1959 and in 1971 Ind Coope was incorporated into Allied Breweries.

by Mark Matlach

Jon Evans notes that Allsopp also had receipts preprinted with overprints, such as this:

Brook, Freeman & Batley

Brook, Freeman & Batley was a law firm at 47 New Street, Huddersfield from at least 1872. In 1980 the company merged with Eaton Smith & Downey and  a merger with another law firm called Marshall Mills & Sykes took place in 1997. The company now trades as Eaton Smith, a multi-disciplinary law firm in Huddersfield.

Brooks used a rubber handstamp in purple ink with the company initials as a security endorsement for its stamps. I have come across this overprint several times, always on the George V 2d orange.

by Mark Matlach

Croydon Local Board of Health

The cholera pandemic of 1832 killed over 55,000 people in the UK. In London the disease claimed 6,536 victims and came to be known as “King Cholera”. In response to the cholera epidemic the government passed the Public Health Act in 1848. The aim of the Act was to improve the sanitary conditions of towns in England and Wales by placing the supply of water, sewerage, drainage, and street cleaning under a single local body called a Board of Health.

Croydon was one of the first towns to set up its own Board of Health in 1849. The Croydon Local Board of Health improved the water supply by building a pumping station, laying new water pipes, and building new sewers. The Board continued  its work until 1883 and it appears that it was largely successful; by the 1890s Croydon was said to be “the healthiest among the large towns in the Kingdom.”

The number of Local Boards of Health in the UK peaked at 721 in 1873; however, it seems that Croydon was the only one to overprint its stamps.

Croydon Waterworks at Surrey Street, built in 1866

by Mark Matlach

H. P. Bulmer & Co. Ltd.

From its roots as a small family concern in the village of Credenhill, Hereford, H. P. Bulmer & Co. Ltd. has grown into the world's leading cider maker.

The origins of the company go back to 1887, when H. P. (Percy) Bulmer, the 20-year-old youngest son of the Rector of Credenhill, first pressed apples from his father's orchard. Percy is said to have taken his mother's advice to make a career in food or drink, “because neither ever go out of fashion.” In 1888 Percy Bulmer rented a warehouse in Maylord Street, Hereford, arranged to buy apples from local farmers, and produced 4,000 gallons of cider. In the following year the business expanded and moved to Ryelands Street, where Percy was joined by his brother Fred, who became responsible for sales.

Bulmers was first granted the Royal Warrant in 1911 and continues today as “Cider Maker to Her Majesty the Queen.”

The company was independent until 2003, when, having run into financial problems, it was taken over by Scottish & Newcastle, which in turn was taken over by Heineken International in 2008.

Today, H.P Bulmer makes 65% of the 500 million liters of cider sold annually in the UK and the bulk of the UK's cider exports. The company's two principal brands are its own Bulmers cider, which is sold worldwide, and Strongbow cider, which is sold across Europe, the United States, Australia, and the Far East.

Percy Bulmer

by Mark Matlach

John Hutton & Sons

In 1841, John Hutton and Alexander Rhind established a drapery business at 36 Mosley Street, Newcastle. Hutton & Rhind continued their partnership until the death of Alexander in 1855. John Hutton carried on the business alone until 1886, when two of his sons were taken into partnership and the company became John Hutton & Sons. During the 1890s the firm was described as a tailor, draper, shirt maker, hosier, glover, hatter, and producer of naval uniforms.

John Hutton & Sons continued trading under the same name and at the same address until the early 1960s.

by Mark Matlach

Eason & Son Ltd.

The company that is now Eason & Son was originally founded in 1819 as J. K. Johnston & Co., a newspaper and advertising agency based on Eden Quay in Dublin, Ireland. When the firm went bankrupt in 1850, it was taken over by W. H. Smith. In 1856 Smith appointed Charles Eason as his manager in Dublin. Born in 1823 in Yeovil, Charles Eason had served as an apprentice printer in Colchester before running Smith's bookstall at Victoria Station in Manchester. Eason's arrival in Ireland to run Smith's Irish operation coincided with a massive expansion of the bookselling and newspaper industry in Ireland due to the growth of railways, the emergence of national daily newspapers, and a growing literacy rate.

In 1856 Smith sold his Irish business to Eason who, with his son, set up his own company in the same year. Eason & Son grew rapidly with the addition of wholesale book and stationery departments, an advertising section and a circulating library. Eason's railway bookstalls became increasingly popular. By 1900, the company controlled most of the bookstall and newspaper trade in Ireland.

Today, Eason & Son Ltd. is a leading wholesaler, distributor and retailer of books, newspapers, magazines and stationery in both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. The company continues to be headquartered in Dublin and currently employs over 1,800 staff.

by Mark Matlach

Taddy & Co.

Taddy & Co was established in 1740 in London by James Taddy as a seller of tobacco, snuff and tea. By the end of the 19th century the business had grown to become one of the most important tobacco companies in Britain.


During the 1890s Taddy & Co. became well known for the excellence of their cigarette cards. The Taddy cards showing clowns, actresses and flowers have been nicknamed "the penny blacks" of cigarette cards by collectors. There were 20 "clowns" produced in the 1890s and despite being a relatively small set, there are only about 20 complete sets known in existence. In 1995 an incomplete set of 19 was sold at auction for over £10,000. Since then, this price has been far exceeded by a complete set of twenty. Another highly collectable Taddy series is a set of 25 which was issued in 1889 with the Myrtle Grove brand of cigarettes. They depict actresses and flowers and although not nearly as valuable as the Taddy's clown series, they still fetch in the region of £50 per card.


At the beginning of the 20th century Taddy & Co. was extremely prosperous. The owner at this time was Gilliat Hatfield. He believed in rewarding his employees well and ensured that their wages and conditions were superior to those of his rivals, dispensing with the need for any union representation.

During the 1920s  the cigarette industry went on strike and although the Taddy factory workers were already being paid more than the unions were demanding for the rest of the industry, they joined in the strike. Upset by these actions, Hatfield threatened to shut down the company if his employees did not return to work. The Taddy workers refused to back down and Hatfield carried out his threat and Taddy & Co. ceased trading.

by Mark Matlach