In 1870, during the Franco-Prussian War (1870-1871), Napoleon II ordered one million cans of beef to feed his troops. In order to solve the problem of transporting and storing such large quantities of beef, John Lawson Johnston, a Scotsman, created a product known as ‘Johnston’s Fluid Beef’, later called Bovril.
Johnston’s meat-extract product came at a time when a revolution was taking place in the relatively new industrialised food economy. The mass production of affordable, non-perishable foodstuffs sold in cans and jars quickly gained popularity amongst people all over, especially in Britain’s fast growing urban population. Large quantities of the product were served to the armed forces, in hospitals and workhouses. This gave Bovril the credibility as a legitimate health food. It could be drunk as a warm drink, spread on toast or added to soups and stews, and by 1888 over 3000 public houses, grocers and dispensing chemists in Great Britain were selling Bovril to the general public.
But where did the name Bovril originate? The first part comes from the Latin bos, meaning “ox”. Johnston took the –vril suffix from Bulwer-Lytton’s then-popular science fiction novel, The Coming Race (1870), whose plot revolves around a superior race of people, the Vril-va, who derive their powers from an electro-magnetic substance named “Vril”. Thus, Bovril indicates great strength obtained from an ox.
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Photo credit: National Museum, Bloemfontein
Poster credit: The Bovril company [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
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