Consumers were once mostly illiterate, so retailers used images to publicise their trades, such as a boot (cobbler), suit (tailor), diamond (jeweller) and horseshoe (blacksmith). These signs were the precursors of advertisements, which appeared as such in 19th century newspapers and on billboards. Adverts soon became part of everyday life along with the brands they enabled and fostered.

Early advertisements were stiff and formal, relying on variations in case and font size for emphasis. One typically turgid example from the 1820s promised ‘diseased & healthy lives assured’, but added interestingly that ‘policies of twelve months standing are not affected by duelling.’

As time went on graphics were added and great use was made of repeated key words, such as ‘Sale! Sale! Sale!’ or ‘Bargain! Bargain! Bargain!’. In an 1887 Wellington Journal we find: ‘Horses! Horses! Horses! Dead or alive. Will give best prices for dead and worn out horses.’ More imaginatively, in 1908, the Greenock Rubber Company boasted of ‘Flaming Bargains’, and pledged ‘a conflagration in the way of an unprecedented clearing sale’.

Advertisements for quack medicines were widespread. One in a 1908 Sheffield Evening Telegraph said: ‘Whenever you feel run down, depressed or out of sorts take Hall’s Wine’. Another in a 1906 Aberdeen People’s Journal touted Clarke’s Blood Mixture as a cure for eczema, rheumatism, sciatica, scrofula, scurvy, boils, pimples, bad legs and abscesses, and warned against ‘worthless imitations’. We also find Hunt’s Remedy Kidney & Liver Medicine (‘cures all diseases of the kidney, bladder and liver’), Doctor Williams’ Pink Pills (‘for pale people’) and Healthone (‘anti-obesity bath powder’). One advert proudly proclaimed: ‘Eat! Eat! Eat! & Always stay thin. Fat banished. How? With sanitised tapeworms.’ Strange cosmetic devices were also promoted, such as the pull-cord ‘curves of youth chin reducer and beautifier’ for removing double chins.

Beef tea was promoted for its supposed medicinal qualities. In a 1917 Hull Daily Mail, we read: ‘Jardox is beef tea’, ‘guaranteed by the medical profession and used in large hospitals’, the advertisement ending with the slogan: ‘one cube, one cup, one penny’.

Tobacco companies like Cope Bros & Co, founded 1848, were advertising pioneers. Smoking had been popular for centuries but now there were distinctive brands and market segmentation, with appeals even made to the health conscious. We find ‘smoke not only checks disease but preserves the lungs’, ‘may be safely smoked by ladies and children’, and ‘recommended by physicians’.

One key figure In British advertising, Thomas J Barratt, working for the Pears Soap company, created targeted slogans and images. His best-known slogan was: ‘Good morning. Have you used Pears’ soap?’ His most famous image had the soap in the foreground of the John Everett Millais painting ‘Bubbles’.

Sex appeal was largely absent from adverts until the 20th century, although there were exceptions. As early as 1871 the picture of a nude woman featured on a Pearl Tobacco ad, and in 1899 the image of a naked witch astride a broomstick promoted Pears Soap. In 1911, the Woodbury Soap Company used the slogan created by Helen Lansdowne, claiming that women using the soap had ‘Skin You Love to Touch’, and thereafter suggestions of sexuality featured increasingly in advertising.

Most all products were advertised, but some more than others, like coal, cycles, hats, artificial teeth (sometimes used), and gloves. Gloves were a major ladies’ fashion accessory with suppliers offering Chevrette gloves, kid gloves, cycling gloves, Milanese Lisle gloves, cycling gauntlet gloves, and more.

To give a flavour of the products on offer, the front page of an 1895 Derry Journal showed advertisements for cough remedies, influenza tonics, mail order boots, cornflour, curtains, hotels, seaside homes, railway services, pianos, ‘fat’ cattle and sheep, and Jackson & Co’s Dublin Whiskey (‘the ‘flower of Irish malts’).

Frequently advertised services included entertainments, railway and shipping excursions, private education, and, for a brief period, private detectives. An 1894 London Standard included one by Slater’s Detective Association, boasting that ‘Mr Henry Slater is the greatest detective of the age’. With offices at 27 Basinghill Street in the City of London, he boasted in another issue: ‘If you require a mystery cleared up, contact Slater.’

Loan companies advertised widely. In an Essex Standard 1890 we find: ‘Money lent privately and confidentially at a few hours’ notice’, ‘No sureties or friends required to guarantee the amount’, ‘Borrow secretly, cheaply and quickly, interest and repayments the lowest in town’ and ‘Money! Money! Cash advanced in sums of £10 to £1000 at a days’ notice’.

Some products found in old ads are never seen today, like cocaine toothache drops, heroin cough elixir, and the punt gun offered for sale in an 1892 Kerry Evening Post. This enormous shotgun was used to hunt ducks – the birds stood no chance against such artillery. Also no longer found are Pulvermacher’s Electric Girdle (1891) and Harness’ Electric Corsets, ‘the very thing for ladies’ and ‘scientifically constructed’. There was once quite a vogue for things electrical, hence an 1891 advert for Doctor Scott’s Electric Hairbrush, and medical batteries being touted as a cure for diseases, even ‘in cases pronounced incurable’.

Adverts by baby farmers were once commonplace in newspapers read by working class girls. They took the following form:

A widow with little family would accept the charge of a young child. Age no object. If sickly would receive care. Fifteen Shillings a month, or would adopt if under two months for twelve pounds.

These ads were targeted at unwed mothers. No questions were asked and transactions were anonymous. The mother would never see the child again and the chances are it would die of neglect. By the 1860s the practice was condemned as commercial infanticide.

Many still-familiar names were found in Victorian ads, such as Beecham’s Pills (first made in 1842). Bird’s Custard Powder (1837), and Lea & Perrins Worcestershire Sauce (first sold 1838). In the 1860s the latter company warned about ‘spurious imitations’ of their ‘celebrated Worcestershire sauce’. Among other still extant Victorian brands are Cadbury’s, Tate & Lyle, Typhoo and Garibaldi biscuits.

Small ads filled newspaper columns from the earliest days. Adverts asking for tenants often specified no children, as in: ‘wanted, a trustworthy couple without children, girl over twelve no objection.’ Servants were in great demand and ads often just asked for a girl (always cheaper than males or adults). One in an 1881 Hackney & Kingsland Gazette read: ‘Girl wanted, aged 12 top 14, to mind baby and make herself useful.’ Rates of pay were low and seldom mentioned, but ‘respectable girls’ were often specified.

Many papers featured a matrimonial lonely-hearts section. Physical appearance was sometimes mentioned, but in unexpected ways, like ‘good teeth and little feet’, ‘of no bodily deformity’, or in an 1863 Shoreditch Observer: ‘Wishes to meet with a young woman who has but one leg’. Motives could be strangely practical. In 1770 a man wanted a wife because it was ‘inconvenient to leave his house to servants’. Sometimes those who found a spouse regretted it. An 1843 Leeds Mercury tells us of ‘an unlucky man’ who was ‘induced to marry a worthless drunken woman, through the medium of a matrimonial advertisement’. The Matrimonial News, from 1870, was the first paper devoted to lonely hearts ads, but others soon followed, and by 1900 there were twenty of them.

For further information:
Baby farming: http://people.loyno.edu/~history/journal/1989-0/haller.htm
http://vichist.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/baby-farming.html
Lonely hearts: https://www.express.co.uk/expressyourself/301806/History-of-the-lonely-hearts
Quack medicines:https://www.littlethings.com/victorian-quack-medicine/