Midland Vinegar Co
Midland Vinegar Co of Aston Cross, Birmingham.
1875 Edwin Samson Moore, a representative for Pink’s Pickles of Portsmouth, founded the Midland Vinegar Co at Tower Road, Aston Cross.
Frederick Gibson Garton of Radcliffe Road, West Bridgford, Nottinghamshire invented what later came to be called H. P. Sauce.
Garton had a store that was a small co-operative where fairly priced foodstuffs were available, and from which he sold his sauce.
Moore visited Garton to collect a debt, and noticed the sauce-making activities. He purchased the recipe and brand for a £150 plus the cancellation of the debt.
1901 Tower Road became the registered offices of the manufacture of "F. G. Garton's Sauce" as it was then known.
1903 The sauce was re-labelled HP Sauce. Garton had always wanted to call the sauce HP because he claimed to have heard that it was available in a restaurant in the Houses of Parliament.
c1904 HP Sauce was exported worldwide as salesmen were sent around the British Empire.
1917 The label of HP Sauce bottles started carrying a section in French.
1921 Moore retired.
1924 The British Share Holders Trust bought the Midland Vinegar Company, and subsequently floated it as HP Sauce Ltd.