#sawbones

The cool thing I found on my walk today. :D

For context: our usual route for walking the dog brings us along the edge of a certain field which is really rich with ceramic sherds scattered by the plough. Dad and I usually spend a fair amount of time seeing what we can pick up. China is the usual, but there's also a fair amount of old glass, and I've found at least one clay pipe stem.

Anyway, today I saw this wee sherd of white ceramic, just a couple of centimetres square, and when I picked it up and turned it over, I was stunned to see it had writing on the other side! The words "CURE", "Legs Sore" - to say nothing of the rather delightful "GOUT" immediately stood out, and made me think that here I had found a piece of authentic Victorian quackery.

Oh man. I had no idea!

When we got home, I decided to see if I could find out any more about this. Going on the assumption that "244 STRA" was an address on the Strand in London, I searched that, and here was the very first result I got:

"Holloway's Ointment | For the cure of inveterate ulcers | Bad Legs Sore Breasts Sore Heads | Gout and Rheumatism" [with a list of prices following, presumably for different sizes of pot]

Well, I couldn't just leave it at that, so I looked up Holloway's Ointment to see if there was anything more to know about it, and... wow. Not only is this authentic Victorian quackery, it seems to be pretty much the biggest, most popular piece of Victorian quackery going!

The ointment was the brainchild of Thomas Holloway (1800-1883), the son of a Plymouth baker. Rather than following the family trade, he decided to develop his own miracle remedy (and I use the term loosely!), of a sort which was becoming increasingly popular during the 19th century. After what seems to be a fairly shaky start that landed him in debtor's prison for a time, Holloway, together with his wife Jane, set up in the Strand, creating not just ointments, but also pills. (My particular sherd must date from before 1867, because that year they moved to New Oxford Street). Thanks to some truly aggressive marketing, they got their brand to go global, making Holloway one of the richest men of the day.

It goes without saying that there was pretty much no real medicinal value to any of his remedies - I haven't found a definitive list of ingredients for the ointment, but the pills seem to have been made up mostly of spices and natural emetics.

A snake-oil salesman he undoubtedly was, but Holloway seems to have been a weirdly benign one. His medicines, at best and worst, were mostly placebos, but not actively harmful, unlike a lot of other "miracle cures" on the market. And he also had a philanthropic bent which seems to have been quite sincere. With his vast fortune, he opened the Holloway Sanatorium in Virginia Park, Surrey, inspired by Lord Shaftesbury's concern for the improvement of mental health treatment. The sanatorium was intended to provide humane care in therapeutic surroundings. (As of writing, I haven't looked into the insitution's history, so I can't tell you whether it succeeded in its aims.)

The Holloways had no children of their own, and it seems to have been partly due to this that they also set up Royal Holloway College for the education of women. It was opened in 1886 by Queen Victoria, and is today part of the University of London. A statue of Holloway and Jane stands in the grounds.

So there you go! A fascinating wee piece of social history, and a colourful character I had never heard of before, and still wouldn't know about if I hadn't happened to turn over one particular shard of pottery in a field today. Isn't history great? :D

My reading about Thomas and Jane Holloway has been from all over the place, but if you want to follow up yourself, here's a good post from the Chertsey Museum blog.

There's also a short video by Royal Holloway and Egham Museum: