Page 36 - SPRING CATALOGUE APRIL 2024

543. BOMBAY AMBER
HAMILTON BOTTLE.
8.6ins long. Unusual cone
shape, blob/ cork top.
Honey amber, glass
hamilton, full of tiny seed
bubbles. Embossed
KEMP & CO LTD/ TONIC
WATER/ BOMBAY. Less than
a handful recorded. Exc/A1. 9.8/10. NR. £300-400+
The stretched pear like shape simply and boldly embossed
KEMP & CO LTD, with BOMBAY to the rear. Founded in 1864 by
a pharmaceutical chemist Scot David Skinner Kemp (1835-1912), who arrived in India in 1855, his shop was at Sassoon House on ‘Kemp’s Corner’ and was described as “the best chemists of the East”. The bottle dates to around 1870. He dealt in a wide range of chemist related preparations. The company had its aerated-water department in Armenian Lane. They did not confine themselves
to pharmaceuticals, but also carried out business in surgical instruments, chemicals and photographic apparatus, and stocked ‘choicest wines, spirits and liqueurs’ and were shippers of lndian drugs to the London and American markets. There are marked soda syphons (they also sold whisky and cigars) and pot lids for the firm. Ads in the 1950s were for tonics. They also sold soluble flavouring extracts used to make drinks like lemonade, rasperyade, orangeade and sarsaparilla.
Kemp & Cos main Bombay premises in 1901.
544. EARLY BOMBAY
HAMILTON BOTTLE . 7.8ins
long. An outstanding, very
early, cross hinge base
mould, hamilton. Chunky
square lip. Electrifying
vibrant bluey turquoise
glass, wonderfully crude,
lots of tiny air bubbles. Very
heavily embossed, large letters, TREACHER &
CO/ CHEMISTS/ BOMBAY/ SUPERIOR AERATED WATERS. From a famous, past, Indian proprietor (inc. pot lids). An outstanding hamilton! Exc/A1. 10/10. NR. £400-600+
TREACHER & CO/ CHEMISTS/ BOMBAY
Founded in 1839 Treacher & Co are described as wine merchants in 19th century adverts but also listed as chemists and general merchants with shops at Rampart Row in Bombay, Byculla and Poona. William John Treacher (born Bombay in 1848) and his brother Walter George (born Bombay 1850) They are listed in Thacker’s Directory of 1896 and 1911. Both men were in London for the 1881 census. Walter’s widow and their four sons had moved to Auckland, New Zealand, by 1915
Treacher & Co premises, Bombay, 1894.