{"product_id":"very-rare-vintage-1940s-60s-glycerine-thymol-label-charnley-grove-pharmacy","title":"Vintage 1940s-60s Glycerine of Thymol Label 🧪 Very Rare, C Charnley, Grove Pharmacy","description":"\u003cdiv style=\"max-width:315px;margin:0 auto 20px;\"\u003e\u003cdiv style=\"position:relative;padding-bottom:177.78%;height:0;overflow:hidden;\"\u003e\u003ciframe src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/B9b6An4uy9U\" style=\"position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer;autoplay;clipboard-write;encrypted-media;gyroscope;picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen\u003e\u003c\/iframe\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003eWhat Was Glycerine of Thymol For? 🧪 Vintage 1940s-60s Pharmacy Label, Charles Charnley Ltd, Grove Pharmacy\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e3 1\/2\" x 2\" ~\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch2\u003e🧪 Four Sets of Directions, and Every One of Them Above the Collarbone\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThis is an original chemist's label for \u003cstrong\u003eGlycerin of Thymol Compound B.P.C.\u003c\/strong\u003e, issued by \u003cstrong\u003eCharles Charnley Ltd., The Grove Pharmacy, Wilmslow\u003c\/strong\u003e, in Cheshire, England. New Old Stock — never applied to a bottle, never trimmed. Sage green, cream and navy, with a pale ghosted device of a tall footed shop bottle behind the type.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThe reason to own it is the directions, which are printed in full and tell you exactly how this was used:\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eFOR NASAL CATARRH, OR COLD IN THE HEAD.\u003c\/strong\u003e — Dilute with three to six parts of warm water and use as a Nasal Douche.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eFOR SORE THROAT.\u003c\/strong\u003e — Dilute with three parts of warm water, and gargle or spray the throat frequently.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eAS A MOUTH WASH.\u003c\/strong\u003e — One or two teaspoonfuls with a third of a tumbler of lukewarm water.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eAS A DENTIFRICE.\u003c\/strong\u003e — Use a few drops on a wet toothbrush.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eFour uses, and every one of them is the mouth, the throat or the nose. The heading says so outright: \u003cstrong\u003eAN ANTISEPTIC ALKALINE SOLUTION FOR THE MOUTH, THROAT AND NOSE\u003c\/strong\u003e. This is not a general household antiseptic and it was never sold as one — it is a gargle, a douche, a mouthwash and a toothpaste substitute in one bottle, which is a very particular Edwardian idea of thoroughness.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003e📖 What B.P.C. Means, and Why the Word \"Alkaline\" Is On It\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eB.P.C.\u003c\/strong\u003e is the \u003cem\u003eBritish Pharmaceutical Codex\u003c\/em\u003e — the standard reference that told a dispensing chemist exactly how a preparation should be made. Putting those three letters on a label was a claim: this is not my own recipe, it is the official formula, made to the national standard. The Codex carried the compound under its Latin names, \u003cem\u003eGlycerinum Thymolis Compositum\u003c\/em\u003e and \u003cem\u003eGlycerinum Thymolis Alkalinum\u003c\/em\u003e, and it is that second name the word ALKALINE on this label is pointing at.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThymol itself comes from thyme and has genuine antimicrobial properties — it is still the active ingredient in some mouthwashes today. Glycerine was the carrier: sweet, syrupy and soothing, which matters a great deal when you are about to squirt something up your own nose.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003e🏛️ Charles Charnley, Chemist, of Wilmslow\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThe Charnley name is real and unusually well documented for a village chemist, though it belonged to a village chemist and not to a figure in the history of British pharmacy. The \u003cstrong\u003eWellcome Collection\u003c\/strong\u003e in London holds two volumes from the Charnley shop, MSS.8437–8438. One is a pharmacy recipe book running \u003cstrong\u003e1866 to 1940\u003c\/strong\u003e, inscribed on its first page \u003cstrong\u003e\"Charles Charnley, 16 May 1866\"\u003c\/strong\u003e — medical, household, cosmetic and culinary preparations, a few veterinary and horticultural ones, in several different hands with periodical cuttings pasted in. The other is a clothbound volume of \u003cstrong\u003e1869 to 1925\u003c\/strong\u003e whose opening pages are a register of prescriptions dispensed to named individuals. The Charles Charnley who signed that page in 1866 may be the man behind this label's Ltd, or the one who came before him.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eAnd a notice in the \u003cem\u003eStockport Advertiser\u003c\/em\u003e of \u003cstrong\u003e22 July 1938\u003c\/strong\u003e places C. Charnley at The Grove Pharmacy, Wilmslow, still trading. Those are four scattered points across seventy-odd years rather than a continuous record, but they are four more than most village chemists leave behind.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003e🕰️ This Is the Later of His Two Labels\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eHere is something you only get by holding two of his labels side by side. This one trades as \u003cstrong\u003eCHARLES CHARNLEY LTD.\u003c\/strong\u003e, an incorporated company with a registered address on Grove Street. His Tasteless Castor Oil label trades as \u003cstrong\u003eC. CHARNLEY, Pharmacist\u003c\/strong\u003e — a man, personally, with no company and no address. Both carry the same telephone number, so they sit close together in time. But a business does not un-incorporate: \u003cstrong\u003ethis thymol label is the later of the two\u003c\/strong\u003e, printed after the Ltd went up over the door. The printing says the same thing — this one is a proper three-color job with a ghosted illustration, where the castor oil label is one ink, plain type and rules.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eAnd the Wilmslow paper puts years on it. The ads still read \"Charles Charnley, Pharmacist, Tel. 3059\" in September 1946, and \"Charles Charnley Ltd ... Wilmslow 3059\" from May 1949 into at least 1966, and by 1979 the number was Wilmslow 523059. Ltd plus 3059 makes this a late 1940s to 1960s label, not the 1910s or 20s.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe Wilmslow paper fills in the rest of the story. Charles Charnley was advertising as a dispensing chemist on Grove Street by 1875, the shop's phone number was 4X around 1909 and 59 by 1914, and by 1946 it was \"Charles Charnley, Pharmacist,\" at Wilmslow 3059. Sometime between 1946 and 1949 the business became Charles Charnley Ltd, and in time it added a second shop at 20 London Road in Alderley Edge. In 1998 the paper called it Wilmslow's oldest chemist shop and talked to 87-year-old Charles Charnley, whose ancestors, it said, founded the business in 1863.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\n\u003ch2\u003e💊 The Word \"Pharmacist\" Was Earned\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eOn his earlier label Charnley styles himself \u003cem\u003ePharmacist\u003c\/em\u003e, and that was a protected title. The \u003cstrong\u003ePharmacy Act of 1868\u003c\/strong\u003e made it an offense in Britain to call yourself a chemist, a druggist, a pharmacist or a dispensing chemist without being on the register. Printing it was a legal statement about his standing, not a job description.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003e🖼️ Display Ideas\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e🧪 \u003cstrong\u003eApothecary wall\u003c\/strong\u003e — pair it with his castor oil label and you have the same shop before and after incorporation, which is a far better display than either alone.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e🦷 \u003cstrong\u003eA dentist's or doctor's waiting room\u003c\/strong\u003e — \"use a few drops on a wet toothbrush\" is a conversation piece in the right office.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e📚 \u003cstrong\u003eFramed with a note\u003c\/strong\u003e on the Wellcome holding the shop's recipe books.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e🎁 \u003cstrong\u003eFor a pharmacist\u003c\/strong\u003e — particularly one who enjoys that a single bottle was expected to do four jobs.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003e🎁 Who Collects These\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003ePharmacy and apothecary ephemera collectors\u003c\/strong\u003e are the core audience, and British chemists' labels with a named, traceable man behind them sit at the top of the field. \u003cstrong\u003eDental and medical historians\u003c\/strong\u003e want the dentifrice direction specifically — a liquid toothpaste is not what most people picture. \u003cstrong\u003eCheshire and Wilmslow local-history collectors\u003c\/strong\u003e take it as a piece of the village. And \u003cstrong\u003etypographers\u003c\/strong\u003e like the restraint of it: three colors, a ghosted bottle, and four blocks of directions laid out cleanly on a sheet three and a half inches wide.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003e❓ Frequently Asked Questions\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003eIs it original?\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eYes — an original chemist's label, New Old Stock, never applied to a bottle. The color is full and the sheet is flat and unglued. The type ghosts faintly through to the back, which is what thin period label stock does.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eCharnley's labels have had a second life as wall art, too. The poster publisher Buyenlarge reproduces several of them, his Ammoniated Tincture of Quinine and his Gee's Linctus among them, as posters and canvas prints. I don't know about you but I prefer to have the original.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003eWhat was it actually for?\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe mouth, throat and nose, and nothing else. The label prints four sets of directions — nasal douche, throat gargle or spray, mouth wash, and dentifrice — and the heading names those three places outright. It was not a wound antiseptic.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003eCan you date it exactly?\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eNot to the year, but closely: \"Charles Charnley Ltd\" with telephone 3059 is how the shop advertised from 1949 into at least 1966, and it was not yet a limited company in September 1946. So the late 1940s to the 1960s.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003eWhat does B.P.C. stand for?\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe British Pharmaceutical Codex, the national standard reference for how a preparation should be compounded. On a label it is a quality claim: made to the official formula rather than the chemist's own.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"relatedBlock\"\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003e🔎 More From The Vintage \u0026amp; Antique Gifts Archive\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/very-rare-vintage-1940s-60s-elixir-cascara-label-charnley-grove-pharmacy\"\u003eVintage 1940s-60s Elixir of Cascara Label 🧪 Very Rare, C Charnley, Grove Pharmacy\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-1940s-60s-blood-mixture-label-c-charnley-ltd-grove-pharmacy-wilmslow\"\u003eVintage 1940s-60s Blood Mixture Label 🧪 C. Charnley Ltd Grove Pharmacy Wilmslow Cheshire\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/antique-1910s-sulphuric-acid-label-graham-worthams-drug-store-corvallis-or\"\u003eAntique 1910s Sulphuric Acid Poison Label ✨ Pharmacy Ephemera – Corvallis Oregon\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Vintage and Antique Gifts","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":41716765851880,"sku":"VAG-7340826427624","price":10.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0597\/2718\/4037\/files\/il_fullxfull.4196200667_lpmv_1d8f3d5e-8ae6-4c1a-a00d-c7948f22f600.jpg?v=1785355754","url":"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/very-rare-vintage-1940s-60s-glycerine-thymol-label-charnley-grove-pharmacy","provider":"Vintage and Antique Gifts","version":"1.0","type":"link"}