Christmas wasn’t really Christmas without a special assorted tin of biscuits when I was a kid, and many manufacturers catered for the occasion by producing family size tins. The Co-operative stores made their own biscuits at factories on Crumpsall near Manchester, and in Carlisle, which they sold under the C.W.S brand – Cooperative Wholesale Society.
The two tins here date I would think from the 1950s. One has people in vaguely medieval costume dragging home a giant yule log, with a castle in the background. The other looks back but not quite so far, with a Victorian group dressed for skating, huddled around a brazier.
Skaters also appear on the Elkes Assorted tin, indeed the artist could almost be the same person. This time two small children are buying roasted chestnuts from a seller set up at the edge of the frozen lake. I do like the plain outline style of the illustration an the slightly pop art feel of the tree branches. The Elkes Biscuits factory in Uttoxeter, Staffordshire, is still going. It was taken over by Northern Foods in 1986, and is now owned by Fox’s, although they still produce some biscuits under the Elkes name. It began as a small family business run by Charles Henry Elkes, Baker and Confectioner, in a shop in Carter Street around 1908. In 1928 they opened the Dove Valley Bakeries, producing Elkes Malted Milk (they invented the biscuit) and London Assorted biscuits, under the name of C.H. Elkes and Sons Ltd, Biscuit and Cake manufacturers.
The Excelsior Yuletide tin is more fun, and focuses on children carrying home presents on their wooden sledge. Again very flat bright colours which make it a very eye-catching product. Although there is a London address on the side, the tin also has Cardiff, Uttoxeter and Ormskirk underneath – so perhaps was made by the Elkes factory. Again I would suggest Fifties for this.
The tins look great on the shelf come December, and make useful storage for the rest of the year. It would seem a no-brainer to help recycling by getting modern day producers to devise packaging which has a useful afterlife. Today’s biscuit assortments are often in plastic and card packaging which has no second-life use.
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