October 2006
Worth a Guinea a Box!	Show Menu

Reprinted with permission from ‘THE BELL’, a periodical publication of Stainer & Bell Ltd.

Thomas Beecham, manufacturer of the famous Pills, used humour to great effect to promote his products. He was the ‘Del Boy’ of his day, firstly selling his wares from a street barrow in St Helens market, and then becoming, with the outstanding growth of the company, the greatest advertiser, spending a staggering £120,000 in 1891. Fourteen thousand newspapers around the world were said to have carried his advertisements.

With no controls on the advertising industry in the 19th century, Thomas made many claims of his product, and paid the infamous poet, William Topaz McGonagall, to pen the doggerel which includes the lines:

They are admitted to be worth a guinea a box,
   For bilious and nervous disorders,also smallpox,
And dizziness and drowsiness, also cold chills,
   And for such diseases nothing else can equal Beecham’s Pills.

There are many stories regarding Thomas’s promotional methods. One involves a vicar in South Shields who approached Beecham to provide hymn books at low cost in return for including a small advertisement for his products in them. When the books arrived, the vicar could not find any advert and concluded that Thomas had made a gift of the books. The truth only became clear sometime later, when, just before Christmas, the congregation found themselves singing:

Hark the herald angels sing,
   Beecham’s Pills are just the thing
For easing pain and mothers mild –
   Two for adults, one for a child.

This same humour was inherited by his grandson, Sir Thomas Beecham. Elder son of Sir Joseph, Thomas was born at Ewanville, a fine mansion in the ‘orchards’ area of St Helens on 29 April 1879. He started playing the piano at the age of six, but also excelled at sports at Rossall School in Lancashire. In 1900 he moved to London where he studied musical composition with Charles Wood.

An injury to his wrist in 1904 thwarted his ambition to become a concert pianist and he diverted his energies into other channels. In 1906 he founded (with Charles Draper) the New Symphony Orchestra and in 1910 started the first in a series of opera seasons at Covent Garden. He succeeded to the baronetcy in 1916 on the death of his father and was knighted in the same year.

In 1932 he founded the London Philharmonic Orchestra and was appointed artistic director at Covent Garden, a position he held until 1939. During WW2 he was based in the United States, although spending much of the time touring. In 1946 he founded the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra.

He was renowned for his afterconcert speeches and for introducing British audiences to a large number of new pieces, including works by Delius. He edited several of his compositions including the Double Concerto and Violin Concerto (Ref B648 £35.00) and North Country Sketches, Dance Rhapsody No.2 and Eventyr (Ref B661 £50.00).

Sir Thomas was quoted by the New York Tribune, shortly before his death on 8th March 1961, saying

‘The English may not like music, but they absolutely love the noise it makes.

A musicologist is a man who can read music but can't hear it.

Brass bands are all very well in their place – outdoors and several miles away. There are two golden rules for an orchestra: start together and finish together. The public doesn’t give a damn what goes on in between.

Movie music is noise. It’s even more painful than my sciatica.’

Stainer & Bell Ltd.,
Victoria House,
23 Gruneisen Road, London N3 1DZ,
Tel. 0044 208343 3303,
post@stainer.co.uk,
http://www.stainer.co.uk/

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