Curio

State Library of New South Wales
Advertisements for Schweppes, c. 1910

Advertisements for Schweppes, c. 1910

Reproduction

DG V* Cartoons 6 and 7

These cartoons were used to sell Schweppes soft drinks. They feature Samuel Pickwick Esq., a wealthy gentleman and a character from a comic Dickens novel — The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club. Most of the action in the novel takes place in the 1820s in the inns of rural England. Sam Weller, with his cockney accent and working-class roots, becomes Pickwick’s valet and joins him on his travels.


Lime juice cordial was first patented in the United Kingdom by Lauchlan Rose in 1867. It became popular as a soft drink after it was discovered as a cure for scurvy (vitamin C deficiency). 


Tony Weller is a coach-driver and the father of Sam Weller. Pickwick always travels by coach around England.


Schweppes drinks were first imported to Australia in 1850. The first Schweppes factory was built in Sydney in 1877.


Lionel Lindsay was born in Victoria in 1874. His younger brother is Norman Lindsay – illustrator of The Magic Pudding.


Lionel Lindsay taught himself to draw by copying cartoons from Punch magazine. He enjoyed reading Charles Dickens as a child.


Lindsay did illustrations for the Bulletin and Lone Hand magazines and exhibited his etchings in Sydney and London.


Sarsaparilla was originally made from smilax ornate, a vine with prickly stems that originates from Mexico and Central America. It is sometimes called root beer in the USA. It was seen as an alternative to alcohol during the temperance period.


The Pickwick Papers has been made into two silent films (1913 and 1921), a movie (1952), an opera (1936), a radio series (1938) and a TV miniseries for the BBC (1985).