3-085-918 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Advertisement for Bovril, 1898. 'PLAUSIBLE, but POOR IMITATIONS. AVOID THEM. THERE IS ONLY ONE BOVRIL and it has stood the test of years. A LITTLE CALCULATION shows that the present rate of sales is sufficient to supply annually over 150,465,600 Cups, How's that for popularity?'. 'Johnston's Fluid Beef', later called Bovril, was originally created by John Lawson Johnston to feed troops. The first part of the product's name comes from Latin bovinus, meaning "pertaining to an ox". Johnston took the -vril suffix from Edward Bulwer-Lytton's then-popular novel, The Coming Race (1871), the plot of which revolves around a superior race of people, the Vril-ya, who derive their powers from an electromagnetic substance named "Vril". Therefore, Bovril indicates great strength obtained from an ox. From "Illustrated London News", 1898.