History of Bovril

Bovril’s origins date back to the 1870-1 Franco-Prussian War, when a Scottish entrepreneur John Lawson Johnston, won a contract to supply canned meat to French troops during the siege of Paris.

Lawson Johnston was teetotal butcher from Edinburgh; he was born John Johnston but added the Lawson on his marriage to Elizabeth Lawson in 1871.

In 1871, Johnston moved to Canada and set up business. In 1884, Johnston opening a factory in London for the manufacture of his unique product which was renamed Bovril in 1886. The name came from ‘Bros’, the Latin word for ox, and ‘Vril’, a word meaning energy force which was taken from The Coming Race, an 1870 novel by Edwards Bulwer-Lytton.

The earliest advertisements s for Bovril date from around 1889, but it was not until S. H Benson, a former Bovril employee, set up in business as an advertising agent, with Bovril as his first client, that the company embarked on a sustained and coordinated campaign.

Johnston sold Bovril to Ernest Hooley in 1896 for £2 million. The company sold again in 1971, this time to Cavenham Foods, and it is now owned by Unilever.  
History of Bovril