Description

PUBLICATION DETAILS:  British-American Tobacco Co. Ltd. Successor to Wm. Cameron & Bro. Petersburg, VA.
 In bottom margin: “Dying to save the Queens Colours.” An episode in the battle of Insandlwhana. The death of Lieutenants Melville and Coghill, 24th Regiment.  Lower right in image: Lith. by A. Hoen & Co. Richmond, VA.   10”w x 9 ¾”h.  Colored lithograph.  This label is probably a leftover copy printed during the early 1900s.  Such labels were pasted on crates (also called caddies) or barrels of tobacco.
 
THE BATTLE: The “Battle of Isandlwana” on January 22, 1879 was the opening, major encounter in the war between the British Empire and the Zulu Kingdom. A 20,000 strong Zulu army equipped mainly with iron spears and cowhide shields defeated a mixed British and native force armed with the state of the art breech-loading rifles and artillery. Over 1,300 British and native troops were killed, while the Zulu warriors suffered approximately one thousand killed.
 
TOBACCO COMPANY: The British American Tobacco has been in business since 1902 as a joint venture between the UK’s Imperial Tobacco Company and the American Tobacco Company founded by James ‘Buck’ Duke.  Despite its name, derived from the home bases of its two founding companies, British American Tobacco was established to trade outside both the UK and the USA and grew to cover Africa, Asia, Latin America and Continental Europe.
 
HOEN & CO:
Originally a Baltimore, Maryland-based lithography firm founded by Edward Weber in the 1840s as E. Weber & Company.  German immigrant August Hoen took it over with his brothers Henry and Ernest in the mid 1850s, upon Weber’s death. A branch of A. Hoen opened in Richmond, Virginia in the late 1860s.  Among Hoen’s earliest Richmond jobs was the printing of Southern currency near the end of the Civil War. In the newer Richmond plant the quality of inks and paper stock, as well as the multi-layer lithography process itself saw great advances, to the point where most Hoen-produced covers and cigar boxes from the 1890s forward still retain their original hues after more than a century. Hoen used the five color multi-layer process for his printing. 
 
CONDITION: Image in very good condition.