Jay Riganelli
With the class coming to a close I can say we found a lot of artifacts. At the start of excavations every discovery was exciting, but by the hundredth piece of window glass the novelty had worn off. One interesting artifact we found was a glass bottle stopper in the shape of a crown.
After finding so much broken glass finding something complete and distinctive was immediately interesting. In researching I quickly stumbled upon a photo of the same stopper intact bottle included. The image led to What the Victorians threw away an online database of artifacts. With a likely match discovered the embossing on the bottle drew my attention ‘The Crown Perfumery Company, London’ and upon a quick search it became clear that many of their perfumes had similar crown shaped bottle stoppers.
The Crown Perfumery Company quickly led me down a rabbit hole exploring the history of the perfume house. The company was founded by William Sparks Thomson. He first became known for his corsetry. He was the first to manufacture crinolines in America and the first to manufacture corsets by machine and “Thomson’s Glove-Fitting Corset” was hugely successful on both sides of the pond.
Thomson catered to the London’s high society with corsetry and perfumes, including his most famous customer queen Victoria. In 1872 The Crown Perfumery, London was established, and Queen Victoria allowed the royal crown to be used on the bottles which then became a signature feature. This endorsement from the queen herself certainly set the perfumery out for success. In 1885 and 1886 respectively the crown perfumery released their most iconic items; lavender smelling salts which came in a stout green glass bottle with the iconic crown stopper, and Crab-apple Blossoms perfume which came in a colourless glass bottle also with crown stopper, similar to the one we found.
The perfume house was extremely successful. By 1895 they had won 16 medals at international shows and sold across the globe. However, after Thomson’s death the company was sold, and the perfume house was later closed in 1939. That was until the 1990s when Clive Christian reproduced and sold some of Crown’s most successful scents and later original perfumes. To this day the brand maintains their unique crown stopper on all of their bottles.
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