Door-to-door quacks were actually a thing. Part III.
Click here for Part I of Door-to-door quacks were actually a thing (She voided a frog, a newt and two worms), and here for Part II (Hezekiah Bowling was a happy man).
Here's Hezekiah Bowling's 'Dr Montague of Lincoln' handbill again, with 18 testimonials, all of them works of fiction. It was acquired several years ago from an online seller in Lancashire, UK. Quite large, at about 45cm x 30cm (18" x 12") it is one of eight, all from the same source and all identical apart from names and addresses of both doctors and patients. A ninth from the same seller disappeared elsewhere at the same time, and was different again. The eight I have are all marked up for changes, but only to names and addresses, never to the testiminials.
With the collection of handbills were several letters addressed to Edward Ambler (1), a printer in Preston, from Hezekiah (6 letters), Richard Kelly (1 letter), and Augustine Kelly (2 letters) of Preston, and two from Tom Taylor of Barry in South Wales (2 letters - we may return to Tom in a future post, but this is the last of him for now). The letters all place orders for between 500 and 1000 new handbills and, following the pattern of differences between the handbills, most include lists of changes to be made to the new bills, to names and addresses of the 'patients', and sometimes to those of the 'doctors'. The new bills were to be sent to railway stations across the midlands and north of England to await collection.
Here's one of the letters, this one written by Hezekiah on 3rd September 1867, ordering 500 new bills:
"Stoneymiddleton Sep 3rd / [18]67
Mr Ambler
Please print me 500 bills of this copy I send
you the enclosed 6 shillings in
postage stamps and I hope you
will not make the mistake you
made before. I hope you will
print them for me at once for
I am quite without bills
by doing you will much oblige
yours Respectfully
H Bowling
Direct them H Bowling
Millersdale Railway Station
Derbyshire till called for"
The 'copy' referred to is an accompanying list of changes to the bills including, in this case, changing the name and address of the doctor to 'Dr Montague, residence Market Place Lincoln'. The other names and addresses are mostly the same as those on the handbill at the top of this page, suggesting that the handbill is one of Hezekiah's, although a few differences indicate that this letter refers to a different, earlier handbill, now lost. The changes are numbered 1–18, corresponding to the eighteen testimonials, starting with number 1 at the top left and ending with 18 at the bottom right:
Stoneymiddleton, where Hezekiah wrote the letter, is only a few miles up the road from Millersdale where the new handbills were to be sent, suggesting that he didn't feel the need to move any very great distance before changing the details on his handbills. That does however beg the question of why he bothered to change the handbills at all, at least in this case.
Let's pick three testimonials, more or less at random, and have a closer look at them across all of the handbills and letters:
No 7. 'ASTONISHING CURE OF PARALYSIS. Sir - Having regained my health by the use of your medicines, I think it proper to make known the following particulars : - I was attacked by a shivering which deprived me of the use of my right side, the muscles of my face were contracted, speech and memory impaired, loss of appetite, wind in the stomach, palpitation of the heart, dimness of sight, cold clammy sweats, a painful prickly sensation of the whole body, and was unable to get up or lie down without assistance. I remained in this state eleven years, without hope of getting better, till fortunately one of your bills was left at my house, which induced me to apply to you, and which has also been the means of restoring me to health. I give you my testimonial ...'
This testimonial has eight different names listed, at nine addresses scattered across Lancashire, Yorkshire, Lincolnshire, and County Durham: William Howcroft of Ormskirk, Lancashire; William Howcroft (again) of Stockport, Lancashire; Mrs Fisher of Liverpool; Harry Hall of Richmond in Yorkshire; Henry Hunt of Sheffield; Thomas Farnshaw of Boston in Lincolnshire; Richard Southworth of Durham; Thomas Kelly of Hyde in Manchester; and William Slater of Malton in Yorkshire.
No 10. 'CURE OF KING'S EVIL (2). Sir, My daughter suffered from King's Evil (2), for upwards of 15 years, which commenced in the form of lumps in her neck gradually enlarging until the[y] burst, constantly discharging a bloody matter, attended with great pain and debility. She was discharged from the Manchester Infirmary, and given up by twelve professional gentlemen incurable. I certify that having been under your treatment for six weeks she is perfectly cured. I am, Gentlemen, Yours truly ...'
Again, eight names at nine addresses but this time in six counties across the midlands and north: E. Burton of Ashton in Lancashire; Mrs E. Kelly of Liverpool; Ellen Chambers of Appleby in Westmorland (now Cumbria); Samuel White of Huddersfield in Yorkshire; H. Bolton of Long Sutton in Lincolnshire; John Smith of Bishop Auckland in County Durham; M. Anderton of Glossop in Lancashire; Mr James Lang of Kirbymoorside in Yorkshire; and finally H. Bolton again, but he's now in Bingham near Nottingham.
No 17. 'SORE LEGS CURED. Dear Sir, - I acknowledge my thankfulness to God that in His providence I made a trial of your invaluable medicines. I was 12 years afflicted with swellings in the legs which broke out into ulcers of the most painful kind, daily increasing in size, until they nearly covered the whole of my legs, running a very offensive matter. After applying to several doctors without deriving any benefit, I am now by taking your medicines, entirely cured; the running has ceased, the wounds are healed, in fact I am now a new woman, Hearing that you were publishing a list of cures I wish you to publish this remarkable one. I shall be glad to answer any inquiry personally or by letter'.
This time, six different names at eight addresses spread throughout the midlands, north, and even East Anglia: Ann Hartley of St Helens in Lancashire; Isabella Hetherington of Greenfield in Lancashire; Catherine Jackson of Penrith in Cumberland (now Cumbria); William Kirk of Halifax in Yorkshire; Ann Hartley again, but now she's in [King's] Lynn in Norfolk; Mrs Swales of Ferry Hill in Durham; Mrs Taylor of Ashton in Lancashire; and Ann Hartley yet again, but now she's in Melton Mowbray in Leicestershire.
It's worth pointing out that it wasn't only the addresses of the 'patients' that were fictional. Those of the 'doctors' were, as well. Given the door-to-door sales method there was no need for there to be any genuine association of the 'doctors' with the addresses, or even the towns, on the handbills, and one very good reason for there not to be: if and when the fraudulent nature of the business was found out, as happened in 1876, a genuine address would be a serious disadvantage when it came to evading the law or avoiding irate customers.
Photographic interlude. Embossed medicine bottles: Turlington's Balsam, Daffy's Elixir, and Dalby's Carminative. Late 18th century to early 19th century. It's unlikely that Hezekiah or the Kellys ever used embossed bottles. Not only were embossed bottles more expensive, but the frequent changes of alias would have meant that both the bottles and the expensive engraved moulds needed to make them would have quickly become obsolete. The highly itinerant lives of the Preston-based travelling quacks probably also meant it was more practical to use any suitable second-hand bottles that came to hand, rather than having to re-order bespoke bottles from a glass maker, and then transport them between areas.
William Kirk was a new woman.
There's a lone man among the names beneath testimonial 17: William Kirk of Halifax, who appears on one of the Dr Du Barry handbills. Someone clearly got a bit careless when deciding on changes to names on that occasion, so we find the following:
The return addresses on Hezekiah's letters, which were probably all guest houses or boarding houses, enable us to build up a basic itinerary for him for 1867. There are long gaps where letters are missing, but it gives us a flavour of his travels in that year. In approximate date order:
1. Huddersfield, Yorkshire (No 10 Manchester Street). 18th March 1867. In several instances incorrect, phonetic, spellings of town names are used in the list of changes e.g. Redford instead of Retford, Tickle instead of Tickhill. He's about to move on, possibly to Mansfield.
2. Mansfield, Nottinghamshire (Bakers Court, Leeming Street). Undated, but after the March 18th letter because of corrected place name spellings. About to move to Retford, Nottinghamshire.
There's then a gap of several months until:
3. Stoneymiddleton, Derbyshire (no address). 3rd Sept 1867. About to move to Millersdale.
4. Peterboro, Cambridgeshire (no address). Undated, but probably December as he mentions that "it is near Christmas". About to move to Oakham, Rutland.
5. Nottingham (No 5 Elgin Court). Undated, but probably late December 1867 as he wishes Edward Ambler a Happy New Year. No mention of moving.
One letter is undated and impossible to even put in date order:
6. Barnsley (13 Silver Street). Undated and undatable. No mention of moving.
So from March to December of 1867 Hezekiah plied his trade in or around at least 8 different places, or 9 if we include the undatable Barnsley letter: Huddersfield, Mansfield, Retford, Stoneymiddleton, Millersdale, Peterborough, Oakham, Nottingham, and Barnsley. Given the long gaps between the surviving letters, this list of places is probably incomplete. There's no reason to think that 1867 wasn't a fairly typical year.
Letter 2, posted from Mansfield just before Hezekiah moved the 20 miles to Retford, lists testimonial addresses in central Nottinghamshire (Retford and Mansfield are in the north of the county) as well as Lincolnshire, Norfolk, and even Suffolk. Perhaps these were far enough away from Retford and the surrounding areas to reduce the risk of the fraudulent testimonials being found out, but close enough for the town names to be familiar, and so more credible. Similarly, when Hezekiah was planning to work around Millersdale in Derbyshire the place names he requested were in Nottinghamshire and Lincolnshire: close, but not too close.
In contrast to the letters from Hezekiah, those from the Kelly brothers were all sent from the north-east of England. Augustine sent two letters from his home address in Sunderland, with one of those letters requesting that handbills be sent to the railway station at Tow Law in County Durham - presumably the area he was planning to use them. Richard Kelly's letter was sent from Richmond in Yorkshire, requesting that the handbills be sent to the station at Darlington in County Durham.
So it seems that in 1867, unlike 1876 when they were apparently working together in the Jedburgh area, Bowling and the Kellys were probably working separately. Not only do all the 1867 letters only refer to "I" with no use of the plural "we", but the letters suggest that the Kelly's may have been concentrating on England north of the Humber while Bowling was mostly in the midlands, travelling as far south as Cambridgeshire and as far north as parts of Yorkshire.
A bottle label from the same 1867 collection of papers. This too is marked up for changes, altering Dr Du Barry to Dr Allen (both probably aliases of Richard Kelly, who seems to have been working the north-west of England in 1867 while his brother Augustine was working the north-east and Hezekiah was working the midlands). The 22s.6d. price was a lot of money: just taking inflation into account, twenty-two shillings and sixpence in 1867 was the equivalent of £100, or about US$130, in 2019. Using average earnings as a comparative measure it was equivalent to the huge sum or £727, or over US$900, per bottle (3). It wouldn't have taken very many sales per month to make a living.
Notes and References.
1. Edward Ambler (1820 - 1887) was a printer and prominent member of the local community in Preston, having been a member of the local Board of Guardians for 14 years, a Council Member of the Institute of Mechanics for 20 years, a board member of two building societies and active in local politics. Information from the obituary of Edward Ambler, The Preston Herald, 27th October 1887. Accessed via britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk, 9th December 2017).
2. The King's Evil. Usually now identified as scrophula, or tuberculous infection of the lymph nodes, this disease was named after the belief that it could be cured by the touch of a monarch.
3. From measuringworth.com. Dates input to the calculation were 1867 and 2019.
© Jeremy Kemp, January 2021.
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