The Snuff Tobacco Reference

The Sales-Pollard Tobacco Concern

Joseph Sales (d. 1814) and John Pollard were tobacco merchants and partners based out of Smithfield Bars in London, who were operating together at least as early as 1763.1

The two were joined in partnership in 1780 by a William Yates,2 and their firm would quickly become a veritable giant, for in the years immediately prior to 1790 it was alone responsible for contributing an astonishing one-third of all monies raised by the British government from duties levied on tobacco.3

In 1810, the business partnership then of Joseph Sales, John Pollard, Edward Hirst, and John Dingley Richardson trading as Sales, Pollard, Richardson, and Company out of Aldersgate Street was dissolved, with Joseph Sales, John Pollard, and John Dingley Richardson together continuing in partnership and trading under the same name.4

Joseph Sales, then aged seventy-six and living in Gower Street, Bedford Square, died on 1814-03-04.5

The firm began to manufacture cigars circa 1830, and won a medal at the Great Exhibition of 1851 for their Yara cigars.6

In 1854, the business partnership then of Robert Smith, William John Wright, and Henry Wright trading as Sales, Pollard, and Company out of 57 Redcross Street, Cripplegate was dissolved, with William John Wright and Henry Wright together continuing in partnership and trading under the same name.7

In 1864, the business partnership then of Henry Wright and Charles Lacey trading as Sales, Pollard, and Company out of 57 Redcross Street, Cripplegate was dissolved, with Frederick Giesler Lloyd and Henry Wright together continuing in partnership and trading under the name Sales, Pollard, Lloyd, and Co.8

Construction of the firm’s Farringdon Road tobacco works began in 1870 or 1871,9 10 and the snuff grinding machinery and processes here were described thus: Two granite ‘edge-runners,’ four feet six inches in diameter, and fifteen inches broad, weighing one and a quarter tons each, grind the rougher material, the weight employed being capable of the most accurate adjustment; the machine in question having been most skilfully contrived for this purpose by one of the firm. After leaving the edge-runners, certain snuffs have to be subjected to other kinds off mills, called ‘mulls,’ which act somewhat after the fashion off pestles and mortars, in order that they may be more thoroughly granulated before being sifted for the removal of imperfectly-ground particles. (Tobacco Whiffs for the Smoking Carriage, 1874.)11

Shortly after the introduction of trade mark registration in Great Britain, Sales, Pollard & Co. were granted a trade mark for the term S. P. in relation to snuff tobacco, but realising the term was by then in common use within the industry the firm in 1878 filed to strike the said mark from the register.12

In 1883, the business partnership then of Frederick Giesler Lloyd, Henry Jones Lloyd, Henry Wright, and William Henry Wright trading as Sales, Pollard, and Company out of Farringdon Road, also Charles Street, also 41 Haymarket, and also in Middlesex, was dissolved with Frederick Giesler Lloyd, Henry Wright, and William Henry Wright together continuing in partnership and trading under the same name.13

The firm of Sales, Pollard & Co. was acquired by that of W. D. & H. O. Wills in 1893,14 with the Imperial Tobacco Company consequently acquiring any remnants of Sales, Pollard & Co. including the good will.15

Citations

  1. The Universal Director. Thomas Mortimer. Page 77. 1763. Digitised version
  2. The History of the Proceedings and Debates of the Sixth Session of the House of Commons, of the Fourteenth Parliament of Great-Britain. Page 422. 1780.
  3. The History of the proceedings and Debates of the Seventh Sessions of the House of Lords of the Sixteenth Parliament of Great Britain. Page 23.
  4. The Gentlemans Magazine. Issue 1814-04. Digitised version
  5. The London Gazette. Number 16,354; Issue 1810-03-24–27. 1810. Digitised version
  6. Promotional leaflet for Sales, Pollard & Co. regarding a company exhibit at the International Health Exhibition. Digitised version
  7. The London Gazette. Number 21,531, Issue 1854-03-14. 1854. Digitised version
  8. The London Gazette. Number 22,902. Issue 1864-10-14. 1864. Digitised version
  9. The Architect. Volume 4; Issue 1870-07-02; Page 13. 1870.
  10. The Architect. Volume 5; Issue 1871-01-28; Page 52. 1871.
  11. Tobacco Whiffs for the Smoking Carriage. First Edition; Page 17. 1874.
  12. A Manual of Trade-mark Cases. Rowland Cox. Page 355. 1881.
  13. The London Gazette. Number 25,229; Issue 1883-05-11. 1883. Digitised version
  14. W. D. & H. O. Wills and the Development of the U.K. Tobacco Industry 1786–1965. B. W. E. Alford. Page 210. 2005.
  15. British-American Tobacco Company Limited and Imperial Group Limited Understanding. 1973. Digitised version