Sequah

Sequah was one of the most successful quack medicine businesses operating in Britain between 1887 and 1890: estimates of its UK sales in 1889 vary from £150 a day to £8,000 for 3 weeks. Its origins can be traced to the American medicine shows such as the Kickapoo Indian Medicine Firm. In September 1887 a William Hartley (1857-1924) started Sequah's medical career in Portsmouth selling Prairie Flower, Indian Oil, Indian dentrifice and other remedies, which supposedly cured rheumatism and disorders of the stomach and liver by an alleged combination of botanic and mineral substances.

These quack medicines were sold by travelling salesmen or quack doctors (Sequahs), and sales were surrounded with a great deal of public showmanship. Band players accompanied the drawing of teeth for example, and the whole event became a public occasion, drawing large crowds. Sequah published advertisements and testimonials in local newspapers and worked hard to obtain maximum publicity. Agreements were made with pharmacists and grocers to continue retail sales after the departure of Sequah. The Sequah Chronicle, a penny newspaper published weekly, contained advertisements, jokes and short stories.

In March 1889 the firm Sequah Ltd was created, with Hartley as Managing Director, and by 1890 there were 23 Sequahs operating in the UK. He recruited Peter Alexander Gordon (alias James Kasper) in 1890.

Gordon was the son of Dr J.F.S. Gordon, an Episcopalian Minister of St Andrew's, Glasgow Green, born on 9 November 1859. The records demonstrate the high expectations which Hartley expected from his Sequahs. After working for six months as a Sequah in England (May-November 1890) Kasper travelled abroad to the West Indies, America and Canada, and in 1892 to Spain. Other Sequahs were sent to South Africa, India, the Low Counties, Burmah and Japan.

The need to sell abroad was largely occasioned by the Customs and Inland Revenue Act of 1890, whereby sales of medicines could only take place in a "set of premises". The effect this restriction would have on travelling salesmen was evidently not initially appreciated by them, but it was soon clear that interpretation of the relevant clause would not encompass the mobile vehicles of Sequah Ltd. In spite of attempts to diversify sales, the firm ran at a loss in 1892, and at a low level of profitability 1893-1894.

In 1895 the firm was wound up, and although a new company, the Sequah Medicine Company Ltd, was formed in 1895 (dominated by John Morgan Richards, the doyen of the American proprietary medicine business in England), this too was dissolved in 1909. James Kasper evidently parted from Sequah in 1892 and probably returned to New York and to his mind-reading act. Hartley died in Soho in 1924, unnoticed and leaving only£ 734, a fraction of the wealth he had owned in the heyday of Sequah.