One of the great success stories in the local business world has been Cooper’s Oxford marmalade.
It has been a favourite on breakfast tables all over the world for nearly 150 years.
These pictures are the latest to come from Malcolm Ryder, chairman of Begbroke parish council, who has become of a collector of Cooper memorabilia.
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Although Frank Cooper gave his name to the product, it was his wife Sarah who devised the recipe.
When she produced her first batch in 1874, she could never have realised that she was creating a product that would win such widespread approval.
She was born Sarah Jane Gill in 1848 in Worcestershire and married Frank Cooper in 1872.
He was running the family grocery business at 83-84 High Street, Oxford, formerly the premises of the Angel Hotel.
Pregnant with her first child in 1874, Sarah took a batch of Seville oranges from Frank’s shop and created a distinctive marmalade with chunky, coarse-cut peel.
One enthusiast described it as “a high-quality and excitingly bitter-tasting marmalade calculated to revive the most jaded academic or undergraduate palate”.
Certainly, Oxford academia warmed to the product when it went on sale in Frank’s shop. It became a familiar sight on college breakfast tables.
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Sportsmen found it particularly energising, a fact that Frank was quick to exploit. An advertisement showed a college sportsman holding a megaphone in one hand and a jar of marmalade in the other, with the slogan ‘The marmalade to train on’.
The marmalade became so popular that in 1903, Frank moved production to 27 Park End Street, to new premises built by the well-known Oxford firm of Thomas Kingerlee.
The four-storey building had separate sections for cutting, boiling and bottling marmalade and jam.
With demand continuing to increase, the building was extended several times between the wars to the junction with Hollybush Row.
The site was ideal – opposite were Oxford’s two railway stations, the Great Western and the London and North Western, making the delivery of fruit and sugar and distribution of the finished products as efficient as possible.
As Frank and Sarah aged, their sons and son-in-law took an increasing role in the business. Frank died in 1927 and Sarah in 1932.
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After the Second World War, production moved to Botley Road, to the site of the former Majestic cinema and ice rink, now Waitrose.
Brown and Polson bought Cooper’s in 1964 and moved production to Paisley in Scotland in 1967.
Cooper’s old shop in High Street was later occupied by Oxford Bus Company and the Grand Café.
A blue plaque outside No 83, unveiled in 2001, is a reminder of its place in Oxford history.
However, we should not forget that although the famous marmalade bore Frank’s name, it was his wife, with her ingenious recipe, who made it happen.
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This story was written by Andy Ffrench, he joined the team more than 20 years ago and now covers community news across Oxfordshire.
Get in touch with him by emailing: Andy.ffrench@newsquest.co.uk
Follow him on Twitter @OxMailAndyF
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