Summary

A bottle stopper with a screw thread used as a closure for a bottle. This type of closure was patented by Frederic George Riley in England, July 7 1885. It was a common closure for aerated or non-aerated soft drinks in England and the colonies in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

This example of bottle closure relates to the local Melbourne soft drink manufacturing industry which flourished in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries with several companies operating. Aerated waters were a strongly promoted alternative to alcoholic drinks, for health reasons and particularly by those who followed the Temperance Movement.

George Marchant (1857 - 1941) migrated to Australia and began manufacturing aerated, non-alcoholic drinks in 1886 in Brisbane. Marchant & Co. later expanded manufacturing to Sydney, Newcastle, Melbourne and Adelaide. The Melbourne factory was located in York St, Richmond. The company was known as the largest manufacturer of "temperance drinks" in Australia. By 1917 the registered company name lapsed and the brand 'Marchants' continued under other soft drink manufacturers.

Physical Description

Black coloured, wood or vulcanised rubber with screw thread and flat finger hold at top. It has an imprint of the company logo for Marchant & Co., a wheel.

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