CHOCOLATE - URE, Andrew.

Inquire · Offered by Peter Harrington

Manuscript certificate confirming the purity of a leading cocoa brand, together with a privately published sketch of Ure's life. A document in which Dr Andrew Ure (1778-1857), the Royal Navy's consultant chemist on the manufacture of hot chocolate rations, testifies to the high quality of a leading firm's new cocoa product. A fellow of the Royal Society, Ure was among the leading chemists of his day and an authority in matters of military and civilian health. The posthumously printed sketch of his life is held by nine institutions only in the UK.In the Victorian era, cocoa and chocolate were extolled for their health benefits. "All the while, manufacturers were fraught with anxiety over maintaining the quality of their products" (Wilson & Hurst, p. 98). Ure's lengthy note confirms that "the Roll Cocoa of Messrs Graham and Hedley of Liverpool, is perfectly pure, and as well prepared as to afford with hot water or milk, a bland, aromatic, salubrious and highly nutritious article of diet." He highlights his experience "employed by the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty to analyze and improve the Cocoa and Chocolate of which 400 tons are annually manufactured for the Navy at the Deptford Victualling Yard" and that he has had "much experience since in the examination of the same substances, now greatly adulterated in London and elsewhere." Over the page, he records receipt of his fee for performing his chemical examination. The money paid, Graham & Hedley used Ure's endorsement

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