Clive Christian The Crown Perfumery

In the Victorian age, just when the USA was enabling large-scale immigration from Europe – mainly from England – William Sparks Thomson set out in the opposite direction, sailing from the USA to London. There, in 1840, the businessman and holder of a corset patent founded a corset-making enterprise. Its products were all the rage in British high society circles.

Fainting episodes, however, were widespread among the upper crust ladies, due to corsets laced extremely tightly to achieve a fashionably tiny waist. Not one to miss a “cross-selling” opportunity, the keen businessman Thomas soon brought a successful line of smelling salts and lavender-scented lotions to market. That led to the founding of his Crown Perfumery in 1872. The very same year Queen Victoria granted the firm the right to use the symbol of the crown – the only enterprise to enjoy the privilege. It is not known whether Her Majesty’s own scented corsets, seeped in Crown Perfumery’s orange blossom essence, played a part in such an unusual act of favoritism …

At the very latest, the launch of the firm’s iconic Crab Apple Blossom in 1886 cemented the Crown Perfumery’s success. By the end of the 1870s the company was exporting an incredible 500,000 bottles to almost 50 countries ¬– an impressive number, especially at a time when luxury goods were indeed the preserve of a very exclusive few. The glory days of the Crown Perfumery have continued until the present day.