My favourite liquorice tin

This box is about 100 years old.  It dates from a time when Pontefract had 10 or more 'spice' factories.  Today Addingley’s has gone but Wilkinson's lives on in Pontefract as Trebor Bassett and Dunhill's as Haribo.  Pontefract Museum probably has the largest collection of old liquorice packaging anywhere.  Small tins, like this one, had the advert on the outside.  Larger tins often had plain tops and the advert on the inside of the lid.  This was so that they could be set out open in shops to tempt customers. 

Apart from the company name, one of the ways to date this tin is by the style of the advert.  The swirly plant forms are typical of the 'art nouveau' style.  It came from Paris around the 1900s.  This 'nouveau' or new style was a real change from what went before.  Going back to nature and the shapes of plants, insects and birds was a break with the past (the front of Pontefract Museum and its tiled entrance hall are great examples).

Another way of dating this tin is from the picture of the castle.  The ruins of the castle were turned into a park and open-air museum around 1890.  Rockeries and follies were added to make the site more 'romantic'.  One of the towers was half taken down so that the road (North Baileygate) could go round the castle.  The other change was to knock a hole through the wall of the keep so that you could see the distant church of Saint Giles framed by the castle ruins!  People looked at history in a very different way then and they thought that this damage improved the site.  Twenty years later the wall with the hole collapsed.  This tin shows us a bit of local archaeology that no longer exists.

The tin can be seen at the museum with many others.

Do you have any we have not got? They often survive in toolboxes, garages and cellars with screws or fuses kept in them.

Richard Van Riel - Pontefract Museum