Queen Victoria’s chocolate present, still whole after 121 years
Photo Credit ( Greety image )
In the attic of an English house, a 121-year-old chocolate bar in its original tin was discovered. The bar was part of a batch that Queen Victoria had ordered for British soldiers fighting in South Africa.
The chocolate was discovered in the helmet case of Sir Henry Edward Paston-Bedingfield, an English aristocrat who served in the Second Boer War, at his family’s ancestral estate, the 500-year-old Oxburgh Hall in Norfolk, eastern England.
Oxburgh Hall is managed by the National Trust, a heritage charity. “Although you wouldn’t want it as your Easter treat, it is still complete and a remarkable find,” said Anna Forrest, Cultural Heritage Curator.
The tin lid features a portrait of the queen along with the words “South Africa 1900” and “I wish you a happy New Year” written in Victoria’s handwriting.
According to the National Trust, Henry may have preserved the chocolate and the helmet together as souvenirs of his involvement in the conflict. The objects were found in his daughter Frances Greathead’s possessions when she passed away in 2020 at the age of 100.
British troops fought the Boers, Afrikaans-speaking farmers who controlled two independent South African nations where enormous gold and diamond reserves had been discovered, in the Second Boer War, which raged between 1899 and 1902.
To boost troops’ spirits, Victoria ordered 100,000 half-pound (226-gram) bars.
Due to their Quaker opposition to the war, Britain’s three largest chocolate producers at the time—Cadbury, Fry, and Rowntree—refused to take orders and packaged their chocolate in unbranded tins.
The makers gave in to the queen’s insistence that the British soldiers should be aware that their goodies were domestically produced, and some of the chocolates—but not the tins—were branded.
According to the National Trust, although some tins are still in existence, it is very uncommon to track one down to its original owner. It is even more uncommon to locate the chocolate, as the majority of recipients consumed theirs.
