Card of the Day - 2021-12-27

Finally, our third card, from Monday 27th December, was WAL-180 : WAM-1 [trade : UK] Walker, Harrison & Garthwaites Ltd "Dogs" 77 x 53 mm (1901/2) Un/15. The cards are not actually titled, or numbered, and we are not sure how many there are, but fifteen have been seen, or even when they were issued, but the 1902 calendar leads us to suppose it was late in 1901. They made their first book appearance in our British Trade Index part 1, in 1962, and already it was known that the rest of the cards in this trade set had been extracted from T6-11, this being Taddy “Dogs”, where this pug is 43/50.

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Now we featured the Taddy set in our newsletter dated December 2, 2023 but here is the card of the pug so that you can make a direct comparison with the image on today`s card.

Most intriguingly is the fact that the Taddy cards say “A Series of 50 Copyright Designs FROM Original Paintings issued SOLELY by TADDY & Co. WITH THEIR CIGARETTES”.

Not quite sure how they were able to appear on these dog biscuit calendars then, and not too long after, for the Taddy`s were only issued in 1900.

What would become Walker, Harrison & Garthwaite began in 1848 as a one man operation called J. Parkinson. He took on a partner by the name of Salmon, shortly after which the Parkinson name disappeared from the paperwork and a Joseph Salmon was on his own, until he, and a relative, teamed up with a Mr. Walker to make the company into the rather humorous name of Salmon, Walker and Salmon. Somehow, though there were two Salmons, a while after that it is simply listed as Walker & Harrison, as which it became a Limited Company in 1898. Who Mr. Garthwaite was, or where he came from, I have no idea.

Their “Phoenix Biscuit Works” were in Ratcliff Cross, East London, and covered 20,000 feet, though presumably this also includes yards and storage areas.

They are, rather curiously, listed in the trade papers as “Biscuit Manufacturers, also Dog and Game Meals and Foods”. I suppose a biscuit for a human is not that much different from that for a dog, and especially not if you consider that one of their biggest customers was the government, to whom they supplied “hard tack” style biscuits for the Army and H.M. Ships. Though the dog biscuit line was certainly important enough to allow them to have “Terrier, London” as their rather charming telegraphic address.