Box

William Henry Box of the Giant Pill Manufactory falls into a slightly different category as they were manufacturing chemists. The company produced a variety of ointments, pills and lotions perhaps best described as ‘quack’ cures although strictly speaking they were herbal cures. His slogan “Box’s Pills Save Doctors’ Bills”, displayed in large letters over the front of his shop, became a well-remembered landmark of old Plymouth.

The firm operated from premises in King St, Plymouth (and at some point in Cobourg St although there appears to be no listing of him at this address in the trade directories consulted, possibly due to it being in the latter part of their operations c1965).

The company appears to have started life in Delabole, Cornwall in 1875 and moved his business to Plymouth in 1888. Mr Box appears to have been an outspoken critic of the conventional medicine of the time and is quoted variously as saying;

“I had a strong impression that there was something in nature that would cure me and eventually the herbs I fixed upon were gathered and prepared. In the course of a few weeks I mended so wonderfully that I was able to return to my work”

And in his booklet “The Shameless Analysis of Secret Remedies by the British Medical Association' analysed and exposed by WH Box, 161 King Street, Plymouth” and Box had earlier attacked the medical profession's stance on patent medicines in a work entitled The Famous Bird That Speaks one Word (quack): in this he castigated Dr Walsh, editor of the Medical Press (London) in the language of the Old Testament and proposed an interesting and early clinical trial:

‘Bring together in the London Hospitals the 22,500 Rheumatic cripples, warped and bent with the force of the disease, and divide them between you and myself, and I will undertake to cure 20 to your 1 or you shall take my head off at the close of the test. And if you fail to cure 1 to my 20, your heads shall come off. You shall take my head off if I fail, and I will take your heads off if you fail.’

The WH Box business continues today as part of Rickard Lane’s herbalists in Plymouth, being absorbed in 1965.

A variety of products from WH Box

1893 advert for WH Box

1883 Advert for WH Box with Delabole address

1906 advert for WH Box

Pill boxes from WH Box bearing different addresses (small pack is full & sealed)

1937 advert for WH Box

1928 advert for WH Box

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