Whelpton Pills Advertisement

An 1861 advertisement states that the pills were in use at a major county hospital. Proprietary medicines like the pills with potentially dangerous formulations, were widely available in the 19th and 20th centuries – particularly until the advent of the National Heath Service in 1948. They were the successors to the nostrums of earlier times providing self medication for a wide range of afflictions before qualified medical care became widely available. Regulations in the 20th Century revealed Whelpton’s Pills to be at worst totally harmless and at best a mild laxative. A ‘Healing Ointment’ and milder ‘Stomach Pills' were added to the range, perhaps devised by Dr Edward Smith Whelpton (nephew of the first vicar of Saint Saviour’s in Eastbourne). In the 1870s the firm passed out of direct family control and a lion trademark was used from this time.