A framed commemorative display incorporating a Queen Victoria South Africa 1900 chocolate tin, mounted centrally in a printed chromolithographic pictorial background depicting the principal figures associated with the Siege of Kimberley (15 October 1899 – 15 February 1900), housed in an oak frame under glass, 466 x 365 mm.
The five portrait medallions are:
Top left: Major-General J.D. French — commanding the Relief Column
Top centre: Field Marshal Lord Roberts VC, GCB, GCSI — Commander-in-Chief South Africa
Top right: Lt. Col. R.G. Kekewich — Defender of Kimberley
Bottom left: Rt. Hon. C.J. Rhodes PC — Cecil Rhodes, present throughout the siege
Bottom right: H.A. Oliver Esq. JP, Mayor of Kimberley — who instituted the Kimberley Star medal
The centrally mounted tin is a Cadbury Brothers chocolate tin in very good condition, identified as such by its smaller dimensions (160 x 80 mm) and the impressed likeness of the Queen being close to the edge of the tin, manufactured by Hudson Scott and Sons Ltd for George Cadbury.
The background: A patriotic printed chromolithograph featuring crossed Union flags at left and right, ribbon banners identifying each portrait sitter, the bold title "SIEGE OF KIMBERLEY" in blue and white lettering with the dates "Oct. 15.99 — Feb. 15. 1900" below.
The printer of the chromolithographic background has not been identified in any public source. Given the quality of the printing, the portrait photographs, the crossed flags, the ribbon lettering, it was produced by a Cape Town or Johannesburg commercial lithographer. The most likely candidates are the firms that produced most of the South African commemorative ephemera of the Boer War period: Townshend & Son of Cape Town or a Johannesburg commercial printer working soon after of the relief in February 1900.
British Military Badges (https://britishmilitarybadges.co.uk/products/boer-war-cadburys-queen-victoria-chocolate-gift-tin-and-original-chocolate/)
'Towards the end 1899, the first year of Anglo-Boer war, Queen Victoria ordered that tin boxes of chocolate be sent to her troops serving in South Africa. It was intended that every soldier and officer should receive a box with the inscription ‘South Africa 1900’ and in the Queen’s handwriting ‘I wish you a happy New Year’. The country’s three principal chocolate manufacturers, J S Fry & Sons, Cadbury Brothers Limited and Rowntree and Company Limited, were commissioned to undertake the order for what amounted, by the end of 1900, to 123,000 tins. As Quakers, all three manufacturers refused to accept payment for the order and, not wishing to profit from the War, they offered to donate the chocolate instead.
'The manufacture of the tin boxes themselves was funded personally by the Queen. They were based on a design by Barclay and Fry Limited of Southwark, but since each of the chocolate manufacturers used different firms to supply the tins, there are variations in their dimensions, the shade of colouring and the printing of the portrait medallion of the Queen. The tins had rounded corners for ease of storage in a soldier’s knapsack and each contained a half-pound of vanilla chocolate.
'As a gift from the Queen, many soldiers preserved their tins with the chocolate intact, even posting them back home for safe-keeping. In exceptional cases the recipients did not even dare untie the ribbon round the packaging. The tins were so highly valued by their contemporaries that soldiers who were prepared to sell them could ask prices as high as £20. An Army Order issued from Bloemfontein in April 1900 decreed that the tins were to be forwarded to officers and men who had been invalided home before the Queen’s gift arrived, and to next of kin of those who had died during the Boer War.'
