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Featured Bottle No 1.
Our first featured bottle is a classic piece of stoneware from the great age of political upheaval and reform in Britain that followed the end of the Napoleonic Wars: a Reform flask for 'Brougham's Reform Cordial', with slab seal of John Caparn of Horncastle (Lincolnshire), in Jerry's collection.
This reform flask is 8" (20cm) tall, and dates to approximately 1831 - 1834. It depicts Lord Brougham in his lawyers wig and robes clutching a parchment or roll of paper on which is impressed 'Brougham Reform Cordial'. On the back it has the mark of Oldfield & Co, Makers, of Chesterfield.
Reform flask is the name given to elaborate British stoneware flasks made in the 1830s and 40s, and to a lesser extent the 1850s. Many of them commemorate important political figures or events, especially those related to the passage of the great Reform Act of 1832, the repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846, or Catholic Emancipation. Political figures depicted include Brougham, Lord John Russell, Lord Grey, Richard Cobden, Daniel O'Connell, and Robert Peel, amongst others. Other types of reform flask depicted royalty such as William IVth or the young Victoria (both as a princess and as queen), or figures from popular culture such as Punch, Mrs Caudle (from a series of articles in Punch magazine) and the original Jim Crow (from a popular song and dance routine by the American performer Thomas Dartmouth Rice, at London's Surrey Theatre in the late 1830s and early 1840s). Yet others were simply figural (pistols, fish, clocks, sailors, books, man-on-a-barrel, etc) or in other ways decorative.
A group of varied reform flasks dating approximately 1830 - 1840. From left to right: Man on a Barrel (for Old Tom, which was a type of gin); Princess Victoria (pre-1837); Victoria and Albert (1840s); Lord Brougham; Jim Crow (late 1830s or 1840s); two different Daniel O'Connell flasks (1830s).
Reform flasks with the names of bottlers or proprietors stamped on them are very uncommon, and most of those known are from London and the south of England. Almost all of those were made by London potteries. There are very few named examples made by the Derbyshire - Nottinghamshire potteries, and slab sealed examples are extremely rare. Until this example and one other (also from J. Caparn but in a smaller size) turned up in 2003 all known slab sealed examples were from Lincoln merchants*, the most common (or more accurately least uncommon) of which are from Cartledge's Wine & Spirit vaults.
Lord Brougham: a print from an 1834 protrait.
Lord Brougham was one of the great British political figures of the 19th century. Born in Scotland in 1778, he went to University in Edinburgh at the age of 14 where he studied science and law, and it was while he was at University that he became interested in politics. After a period as a barrister in London he became an MP at the age of 32 in 1810, and over the next 20 years worked both through parliament and his legal cases to support reforming causes. In 1830 he was elevated to the House of Lords (providing an earliest possible date for any Lord Brougham flask), and became immensely popular with the public for his work to push the great Reform Act of 1832 through the upper house (the Lords had been the greatest opponents of reform, and had defeated the Bill in 1831).
In 1833 he was instrumental in getting the Abolition of Slavery Act** passed, and he was a vocal opponent of the Corn Laws throughout the 1840s until their abolition in 1846. After a lifetime of work supporting and developing democratic ideals and civil liberties he died in Cannes, in 1868.
John Caparn, who was the original owner of this bottle, was a chemist and druggist in Horncastle, Lincolnshire. He was born in December 1783 in Lincoln, but the earliest reference to his Horncastle business is in 1810, when he was the junior partner of Barton & Caparn, Chemists and Druggists. In that year an advertisement in the Stamford Mercury newspaper records that the pair were agents for Schweppes, presumably stocking very early pontiled Schweppes hamilton bottles.
The Barton & Caparn partnership lasted until at least 1822 (the last reference in any trade directory), but by 1826 Barton had disappeared from the scene and John had become the senior partner in Caparn and Marfleet, also chemists and druggists. Five years later in 1835 John was the sole proprietor of the business, and the trade directory entry for that year is the only record of John working on his own. It is also the last record of him so far found.
The next available information source is the census in 1841, when John had been replaced by his son Daniel, also a chemist and druggist. In 1842 trade directories the business was called Caparn & Son, even though John had probably died or moved away at least a year earlier. The Caparn business finally ended in Horncastle in 1845, when an announcement in the Stamford Mercury records that Daniel sold the business to a Mr Thimbleby. The business in Horncastle was thus operating as ‘J. Caparn’ for a maximum of ten years, from 1831 to 1840, and possibly much more briefly. This coincides exactly with the most likely period of use of Lord Brougham reform flasks.
Researching this bottle has thrown up some further questions. Brian Ashwell of the Brigg Bottle Club (who kindly provided all the Stamford Mercury information used here) has carried out extensive research on Lincolnshire companies, and has discovered links with Boston in south Lincolnshire. A John Caparn was listed as a Boston Chemist and Druggist in 1828 and 1835, and Daniel Caparn in 1841. The coincidence of names, occupations and dates indicates that the same Caparns were active in both towns, and raises the question: Are there any ‘J. Caparn, Boston’ slab sealed reform flasks out there waiting to be found?
Finally, one or two people have remarked that it seems a bit odd that a chemist and druggist would use a reform flask. This had also occurred to me but in fact, as is made clear by the reference to Schweppes soda water being sold by Caparn in 1810 (and again in 1835), druggists and other ‘specialist’ traders in the early and mid 19th century were sometimes very diverse in what they sold. For example, it was common for printers and booksellers to double as patent medicine vendors. Many Grocers also traded as wine & spirit merchants from the same premises, and it is quite possible that John Caparn did, as well.
Three flasks made at Oldfields pottery in Chesterfield, for different Lincolnshire proprietors. The Cartledge flask on the left is the least uncommon type of slab sealed reform flask, but is even so hard to get hold of. Cartledge also used smaller Brougham flasks, as well as examples made in the forms of Lord John Russell and Lord Grey. A small Brougham flask is also known from John Caparn. Thanks go to Ian Langdell for permission to show his Cartledge and Johnson flasks.
(Parts of this article previously appeared, in a modified form, in ABC-UK magazine).
* Although there is an Oldfield made 'Lady with Bird' flask, with a slab seal to the back impressed '"FALCON VAULTS" but without any town name. It is possible, but not certain, that this bottle is from an early 19th century tavern in York, called the Falcon Vaults.
** Although the British slave trade had been abolished in 1807, the ownership of slaves already in the British colonies was not affected by the 1807 Act (but ownership of slaves in England was effectively abolished by a landmark legal case in the early 1770s, when Lord Mansfield ruled that under English law 'the claim of slavery can never be supported'!). The continuation of slave-owning in the colonies even after 1807 was due to lobbying by vested interests, amid claims that freeing the slaves would ruin their businesses and, by extension, affect the wider economy.
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