Stunning Vintage Fry’s Five Boys milk chocolate mirror.
Full of authentic original patina and original wooden frame.
Fry’s chocolate was a milk chocolate bar that was one of the most recognised chocolate bars in the world.
J.S. Fry & Sons of Bristol sold it. The five pictures of the face of a boy in a sailor suit were taken in 1885. The photographs were used in J S Fry & Sons, appearing on enamelled metal signs displayed outside confectioners, on mirrors, posters and in newspapers.
This mirror is unique and highly collectable. It will be a great addition to an old-fashioned confectionery shop, a chocolate mirror collection or any home.
The mirror is in original vintage condition with minor signs of ageing. Please look at the pictures to view the beautiful original patina.
If you need some more information, please get in touch.
Dimensions
Height: 34cm
Length: 52cm
Width: 3cm
Joseph Storrs Fry (1767–1835) was an English chocolate and confectionery manufacturer and a member of the Fry Family of Bristol, England.
Joseph Fry, a Quaker, was born in 1728. He started making chocolate around 1759. In 1761, Fry and John Vaughan purchased a small shop from an apothecary, Walter Churchman, and with it the patent for a chocolate refining process. The company was then named "Fry, Vaughan & Co.". In 1777, their chocolate works moved from Newgate Street to Union Street, Bristol. Joseph Fry died in 1787, and the company was renamed "Anna Fry & Son". In 1795, Joseph Storrs Fry assumed control of the company. He patented a method of grinding cocoa beans using a Watt steam engine, and as a result, factory techniques were introduced into the cocoa business.
In 1795, he assumed control of his parents' chocolate business, now known as Anna Fry & Sons. He patented a method of grinding cocoa beans using a Watt steam engine, resulting in factory techniques being introduced into the cocoa business, building a plant in Union Street, Bristol. He moved to Grove House (now Riverwood House), Frenchay, in 1800. In 1803, his mother, Anna Fry, died, and Joseph Storrs Fry partnered with a Dr Hunt and renamed the business Fry & Hunt.
Dr Hunt retired in 1822, and Joseph Storrs Fry took his sons, Joseph (1795–1879), Francis (1803–1886) and Richard (1807–1878) on as partners, renaming the firm J. S. Fry & Sons, under which name it became the most significant commercial producer of chocolate in Britain.
Fry, alongside Cadbury and Rowntree's, was one of the big three British confectionery manufacturers throughout much of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and Quakers founded all three companies. The company became a division of Cadbury in the early twentieth century. The division's Somerdale Factory near Bristol was closed after the 2010 takeover of Cadbury's by Kraft Foods Inc.
Near the start of World War I, the company was one of the largest employers in Bristol. Joseph Storrs Fry II died in 1913. In 1919, the company merged with Cadbury's chocolate, and the joint company was named "British Cocoa and Chocolate Company". Under Egbert Cadbury, the Fry's division began in 1923 to move to Somerdale, Keynsham, just outside Bristol. After 1981, the name Fry's was no longer in use at Somerdale, but the factory was still a major producer of Cadbury's products.