Time Travel: Bile Beans

Most striking thing about Lord Mayors Walk? Sure, the city walls are great, and the Victorian frontage of York St John is pretty, but our money is on a certain ‘ghost sign’. The Bile Beans sign at the end of the road, overlooking the junction with Monkgate, has for decades assured us that they “keep you healthy, bright eyed and slim”. But what are Bile Beans anyway, and how long has that sign been up there? Follow us…

Fobbery

In a word, Bile Beans were a con. Invented by Australian chemist Charles Forde in the 1890s, Bile Beans were made from a secret Aboriginal ingredient that Captain James Cook himself had discovered as a miracle ‘cure-all’. They were sold to cure problems such as indigestion, headaches, pimples, and even the dreaded “female weakness”.

However, that was all a lie. They were actually created by English entrepreneur and chancer Charles Fulford. He mashed up some rhubarb, liquorice and charcoal powder, then rolled it in gelatine. The Aboriginal ingredient, and Captain Cook’s involvement, were mere marketing ploys… but it worked.

Bile Beans were sold across the UK and the wider world as a cure for just about whatever Fulford thought was ‘popular’. If there was an outbreak of flu, Bile Beans’ marketing would change to claim that they cure that, too. In reality they just made you poo.

Big push

Fulford’s marketing campaign, however, was immense. When the product was first released, he set out on a huge push to promote them, having armies of men delivering leaflets to houses and painting signs to inform the public about their wondrous affect. Conman to the end, Fulford died young at only 30, leaving a chunk of his wealth to Barnados Children’s Home (on the condition that they opened a shop on site that sold only Bile Beans to the kids – it’s okay, they got out of it and won a lump sum).

So you might think it was then, in the late 19^th century, that our own beloved Bile Beans sign was created. But no. You see, back then the wall upon which the sign is now proudly adorned wouldn’t have been much use as nobody could see it.

Until the 1940s that crossroads between Lord Mayors Walk, Monkgate and St Maurice’s Road looked very different – due the namesake of the latter street. The open, grassy corner on which curiously isolated headstone still stand was once the home to St Maurice’s Church, a Victorian recreation of a medieval chapel. As well as the church, other houses and buildings stretched along Lord Mayors Walk, right up to where today the Bile Beans sign can be seen.

Advertising opportunities

So prior to the ‘40s the Bile Beans wall was actually one side of a narrow alley and therefore no good for advertising. That changed when the church and neighbouring buildings were pulled down and the roads were widened to better accommodate motor traffic. This left the owner of the surviving property a huge wall to sell for advertising, to be immediately snapped up by Bile Beans.

By the ‘40s, however, Biles Beans had changed their marketing yet again to target the new fad for being slim. Hence “healthy, bright eyed and slim” was painted on this particular sign, as opposed to the truth, which would have read “it’s a just sickly sweet laxative, you morons”.

Survivor

Today the Bile Beans sign is York’s most famous ‘ghost sign’, and one of a very small number that is constantly repainted and maintained. Enlivened in the ‘80s, and again just a few years ago, Bile Beans is as much a recognisable sight of York as the Minster and Clifford’s Tower. You can buy t-shirts with that eye-catching slogan printed on them, after all.

While Bile Beans themselves died a (probably deserved) death in the late ‘70s, their gargantuan marketing campaign lives on in some small way, now selling nostalgia and fun, and not balls of processed sugar.

Also, what the hell is “female weakness”? Answers on a postcard…