#buried treasure

[treefish]

the thrift gods smiled upon me yesterday 🌞

[verecunda]

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:

[coco9728]

The episode Buried Treasure destroyed two of my favourite things.😭

[novelties-and-notions]

When the sturdiest residents of Sunnyville (that tiny Scottish hamlet more properly known by its original name of Achmothogair) returned to the forest to dig their sleigh out of the snow drifts, they were startled to discover a large buried chest beneath the snow, blocking the path of the runners.

Curiosity naturally overcame them so, throwing their shovels and spades down on the snow, they heaved and pushed with all their might to try to force the frozen lid of the chest open. At first it wouldn't budge at all, but just when they were about to give up the metal-bound lid began to move, and then with a creaking and a groaning it slowly swung right back on its rusty hinges.

The gasping labourers were dumbstruck… Apart from a few old maps, the chest was filled to the top with a jumbled assortment of precious objects, made of silver and gold, enamel and jewels and fine decorated porcelain… They scarcely knew what to say or do, for nothing like this had ever been seen in Sunnyville before…

[wronghands1]

[danskjavlarna]

Source details and larger version.

In buried chests, marked on maps: vintage treasure.

[longreads]

Eyes on the Prize: A Treasure Hunting Reading List

“X” marks the spot! Who can resist the lure and promise of hidden treasure? Chris Wheatley is back with six stories about those obsessed with the hunt for treasure. 

Each of these hunts holds at its heart a puzzle to solve—and for some, as the pieces below demonstrate, that puzzle can turn into an obsession, even a fatal one. But the promise remains difficult to resist.

Read the list here. 

[acmeoop]

Bunny Bling “Buccaneer Bunny” (1948)