Winsor & Newton; printed packaging reflect historical changes

A friend was using paints, and told me he was using the same boxes his grandpa had used to keep his paints in. I love a bit of printed ephemera, and the printing, colour and typography on these immediately grabbed my attention, so I took some pics:

windsor-newton-05

I love how the labels on the two different boxes show different time periods, reflected by the horse and carriage on the road outside the factory (top box) being replaced by a car! Note the additional chimneys in the later one too (bottom box).

box-horse

box-car

We figured his grandpa had used these paints in about the 20s, which makes sense in terms of the dates of the North London Colour Works (Windsor & Newton’s factories in Kentish Town). They moved from their premises in Kings Cross and Blackfriars to this bespoke steam-powered factory in 1844, and stayed there until 1938 when they moved both manufacturing and offices to Wealdstone.

windsor-newton-06

Find out more about Winsor & Newton’s history

4 Responses

  1. Adriana Dixon says:

    Hi there,
    I have a couple of boxes of paint very similar to yours. (The top is identical) One box is of Viridian No. 2 size tubes and the other is Cinnabar green No. 4 size tubes. I was wondering if they are of any value?

    Thank you,
    Adriana

  2. goldtop says:

    I’ve no idea Adriana, I was just interested in how they look and how they reflected the history of the company.

  3. Steve TSG says:

    Hi both,

    I appreciate that this article is now several years old, however, I now manage the company that owns Spring House, the factory shown on the packaging. I wondered if you still had the paints and the packaging as they would be amazing to possibly display in the building as part of its history or to simply keep in our archives to preserve.

    Would be great to hear from you,

    Steve

  4. goldtop says:

    Hi Steve,
    Sorry I don’t, and as you say the post is from such a long time ago, I now can’t remember whose paints these were!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.