The Museum Of Brands
Want To Know More?
OVER 200 years of culture and lifestyle come alive in the Museum of Brands, a treasure chest crammed with household products, toys, food, posters, postcards, comics, royal souvenirs and fashion.
Around 14,000 items are on display at any one time, giving visitors a remarkable insight into how our lives have changed through the evolution of consumer brands.
The idea for the museum was born when consumer historian Robert Opie bought a packet of sweets.
“On the eighth of September, 1963, at the age of sixteen, I bought a packet of Munchies at Inverness Railway Station,” he recalls.
“While eating them, I was struck by the idea that I should save the packaging and start collecting the designed and branded packages, which would otherwise surely disappear for ever.”
He did exactly that, and now the museum houses the highlights of his collection.
The Time Tunnel, the museum’s permanent exhibition, is arranged in chronological order.
This time capsule, a wealth of browsing potential, explores in detail the remarkable story of how daily life has changed since Victorian times.
Offering an insight into the culture and lifestyle of our parents and grandparents, this journey of discovery transports visitors through coronations and wars, changing fashions, the advent of radio and television and man landing on the moon and ends in the present – our digital age.
It is an extravaganza of memories.
Visitors can discover the histories of classic products such as Cadbury Milk Tray.
Did you know that the famous purple and gold colours were first introduced at the beginning of the
20th century, and used for the Dairy Milk bar from 1915 onwards?
There are interesting snippets waiting to be discovered, too. When popular breakfast brand Kellogg’s opened its first factory in Britain, in Manchester in 1938, the company ran a competition to find Britain’s “typical housewife”.
It was won by a lady called Florence Millward, and she performed at the official opening ceremony.
She was invited back 25 years later to meet Prince Phillip when he visited the factory.
In the section dedicated to the world wars, many packages carry poignant requests urging people to save every container and scrap of paper.
During those austere years, when posters warned, “Careless Talk Costs Lives”, labels on tins and bottles were reduced in size, and some products which were normally sold in tins were replaced with cartons.
Products changed, too. Corn flakes were replaced by wheat flakes and, because there was a shortage of full-cream milk, chocolate bars were made with skimmed milk.
However, as Britain began to recover from the ravages of war, new brands started to explode on to the market.
Cocktail parties came into vogue and along came new kinds of products, including Cheeselets and Twiglets.
Smoking was seen as sophisticated, and cigarette advertising was popular.
An advertisement for Pall Mall cigarettes declared they were, “so smooth, so satisfying, so downright smokeable!”
Of course, common sense and health regulations have prevailed in subsequent years, and as a result, advertising campaigns like that disappeared in a puff of smoke!
Other familiar names and faces include the beer Watney’s Party Seven,
Feeling nostalgic? Gilly Pickup finds this London museum is the perfect place to take a trip down memory lane. . .
Green’s sponge mixture, Atora shredded beef suet, Murraymints (the “too good to hurry mints”) and Spangles, the boiled sweets manufactured by Mars, first sold in 1950 – the “Old English” flavour was one of the most sought after.
Sweets were still rationed in the post-war years, but thankfully Spangles only cost one point from a ration book.
This must have pleased sweet-toothed folks of the day because most other sweets and chocolate required two.
Fry’s Five Boys’
Chocolate, launched in 1902, has particularly striking packaging.
Its wrapper is decorated with the transformation of a boy’s face through five stages that chocolate fiends may find all too familiar: from desperation to pacification, then expectation, acclamation and finally, realisation – that it’s Fry’s!
The chocolate was still available in the early 1970s but sadly exists no more.
Many posters in the museum are bound to provide bursts of nostalgic joy for those of an age to remember them.
Does anyone recall Ajax Cleaner – it cleaned like a “white tornado”?
Packets of Instant Whip were made attractive to some housewives of the day, by claiming that it was “made in one minute – ready to eat in five minutes!”
McVitie & Price’s Digestive Biscuits billed themselves as “the premier biscuit of Britain.”
There’s plenty of wouldbe ephemera celebrating cultural icons from the past on show, too.
Visitors can reminisce about anything from the Fab Four, Mork and Mindy and Star Trek to Toy Story and Pokémon.
Nothing takes you back to childhood faster than the familiar products of the time, and there is definitely no better place than the Museum of Brands to take a trip down memory lane and wallow to your heart’s content.
We are currently required to avoid all unnecessary travel. Keep this destination in mind for when restrictions are lifted.
The museum, which has a subtropical garden, café and gift shop, presents temporary exhibitions, talks and workshops to create debate and ideas and examine the role of brands in history and the modern world.
For those living independently with dementia, the museum organises creative reminiscing sessions on Tuesday mornings from 9.30 to 10.30 am.
The Museum of Brands, 111-117 Lancaster Road, Notting Hill, London
W11 1QT. Website: museumofbrands.com. Open Monday to Saturday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Sundays and Bank Holidays, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Registered Charity No. 1093538.