Card of the Day - 2021-12-28

Spratt`s [Patent] Limited was a much newer company than Walker, Harrison & Garthwaites, having only been founded in the 1860s. It had offices at Fenchurch Street, East London, with a factory at Poplar, which had moved from Bermondsey. It was also much bigger, hundreds of staff and many products, not just food but medicine, and for all animals and birds, as well as cereal for humans, and, once more, biscuits for the Army and Navy as well as for canine consumption. The big difference was that Spratt had connections, and a Royal Warrant to sell dog, game and poultry food and supplies to King George V, and they were hard headed business folk who had no truck with a cute telegraphic address like Terrier, they had " Spratts, Fen, London.".

Spratt's always said it was the world's first manufacturer of dog biscuits and of "dog cake", made of cereals and meat. However Spratt could not or decided not to make them. Instead they were baked at the factory of Walker, Harrison and Garthwaite, who then claimed to have baked the first dog biscuit. This seems to have led to a bit of ill feeling between the two. 

This set of 36 cards was also issued as a set of un-numbered “Spratt`s Copyright Portrait Post Cards of Champion Dogs”. For some reason the Harlequin Great Dane from the standard sized set was not in the kennel, he had been replaced by a French Toy Bulldog. Our dog is a Borzoi.