Finally we showed you this card, which you would probably not have known from the front. The painting, called “Dignity and Impudence”, is by Sir Edwin Landseer. The original is in colour, was painted in 1839, and currently hangs in the Tate Gallery. However the back reveals that it is one of the “Academy Gems”, and that gave us another link to the “Academy” Awards – and maybe the gems hearken to the jewels that are glisteningly sported by the attendees?
This Academy is not the same though, it is the Royal Academy of Arts, and artists who are members thereof are allowed to use the suffix of RA after their name. Our artist, Edwin Landseer was, being elected on the 10th of February 1831. In fact he was not the only member of the Landseer family to be elected to the Academy. his father John, and brothers Charles and Thomas also were. But Edwin was the only one who was elected President of the whole Academy, in 1866, though, sadly, he had to turn it down, feeling he was not in good enough health to do the position justice.
This set was designed to be swapped for a print, or print(s) if you were a very keen smoker, for, in exchange for forty cards, you would receive “a coloured and mounted enlargement of such subjects available at the time, or framed complete for 200 cards”.
The story of H.C. Lloyd & Son., Ltd., is rather confusing. Most people agree it was founded in 1785, though they did not begin to issue cards until 1899. And it looks like they only started branding their tobacco in 1897, "Honeydew", "Merrimac", and Ripley" all appearing in that year. Our "Directory of British Cigarette Card Issuers" (RB.7, published in 1946) has their entry as : "76/77 Fore Street Exeter. Founded 1785. (This was originally a branch of the London business of Lloyd. Exeter opened 1845 - separate business from 1866. Afterwards H.C. Lloyd & Son (1925) Ltd. Trade-mark : Elephant and Castle. Now make cut tobacco only. [Brands] "Typsy Loo", "Yacht Club", "Exeter".
In this same volume the entry for Richard Lloyd & Sons immediately follows, but says they were founded in 1875, almost a century after H.C. Lloyd, so it is impossible that our Lloyd was a branch of theirs that split away. Though maybe there was another Lloyd, earlier?
More research has discovered that the "H.C." stood for Henry Cross and he was born in 1776, which makes him unlikely to have opened the business in 1785. We do know that he was a tobacconist, snuff maker, and tea blender before 1800, and that he seems to have started blending his own smoking mixtures in about 1805, about the time that his son, confusingly also named Henry, was born. Henry Cross Lloyd Senior died in 1825, aged just forty-nine, and the son took over the business.
The London Lloyds, who seem to be no relation, bought out the Exeter Lloyds in 1843, and the grandson of the founder of the London business, Richard Lloyd, moved in to the Exeter address. This is probably where some of the confusion comes from, and it is made even worse by the fact that in June 1886, the Exeter company was taken over by Richard Lloyd`s son, who was called Horace Charles Lloyd and it was then renamed H C Lloyd and Son, again. This seems to be the time when some of the other brands appeared..
Then, in 1921 this business went into voluntary liquidation and the stock and premises were auctioned. In 1924 . A few years later, somehow, Cope Brothers came along and bought up the stock and some of the plant which had failed to sell, and it appears that it is they who operated H.C. Lloyd & Son (1925) Ltd.
This set turns out to have many variants too, and is catalogued in our original World Tobacco Issues Index as :
ACADEMY GEMS. Sm. 67 x 36. Front in (a) reddish-brown (b) dark purple (c) green. Unnd.(28). See X1/H.258. Multi backed … L54-1
A. “Broadare Finest Virginia Returns.”
B. “Cherry Ripe Fine Aromatic Honeydew”
C. “Farmville Finest Golden Virginia”
D. “Gold Royal Gold Flake Cigarettes”
E. “Gold Royal Sun-Cured Tobacco”
F. “Lexem Mixture” [the perfect pipe tobacco]
G. “Lloyds Exeter Topsham Mixture”
H. “Old Adjutant Flake”
We also know that Lloyds produced “Tipsy Loo” cigarettes, and that “Lloyds Exeter” was not just a pipe mixture, it was available as cigarettes too. In fact it looks like brand G above is two brands, "Lloyds Exeter" and "Topsham Mixture", perhaps gently separated by a very faint comma or dash. Both these brands are also found on other sets of cards - “Tipsy Loo” on “Star Girls” and “Exeter Cigarettes” on “Actresses and Boer War Celebrities” and “Devon Footballers and Boer War Celebrities”. So it seems odd that neither of these brands have so far been discovered on our set – unless you have them in your collection….?
The link to X1/H.258 sends you to the handbook to the original World Tobacco Issues Index, where there is a table of cards and backs found so far.
This table is slightly altered in our updated World Tobacco Issues Index, and it gives the entire title of the artwork, plus the artist, so we may as well include that too. Also, some of the brands that have been noted for each card do seem to differ, so maybe you could have a check through your cards and do a spot of confirm or deny.... with many thanks
