'The Widow Welch's Pills'

  • Various members of the Kearsley family
Date:
1787-1966
Reference:
SA/WWP
  • Archives and manuscripts

About this work

Description

Records of C & G Kearsley Ltd, London, manufacturers of The Widow Welch's Pills, 'justly celebrated for all female complaints'. This is a very incomplete archive of the business, with some family material, although it does include material from the period of the company's inception in 1787 to the mid-1960s the records of its activities are very sporadic.

Publication/Creation

1787-1966

Physical description

2 boxes, 1 o/s item

Acquisition note

Purchased from David Bluett in November 2005

Biographical note

Catherine Kearsley and her husband were printers and booksellers in London in the late eighteenth century. They began the commercial production of Widow Welch's Female Pills, which they claimed to have as a family recipe, in 1787. There seems to have been some contention over who was manufacturing the true Widow Welch's Recipe, since the collection includes a handbill claiming that Mrs Smithers, as the granddaughter of the Widow Welch was the only person entitled to the preparation. It continued to be a popular patent medicine until the company finally ceased trading in the late 1960s.

Related material

There is an early 20th-century leaflet advertising Kearsley's Widow Welch's Pills in the ephemera collection

Permanent link

Identifiers

Accession number

  • 1397