Saucy, but Nice!

Worcestershire Sauce has its roots in India but its unique flavour was actually created by accident in Worcester, England in 1835.

The Lea & Perrins company says that a Lord Sandys had returned home to England to retire after successfully governing Bengal, India for many years. Missing his favourite Indian sauce, he commissioned local chemist John Lea and William Perrins to come up with a reasonable copy. There’s another version of the story which had the two chemists concocting a new condiment which, after 18 months, they found had matured into a delicious sauce. So delicious in fact that they decided to put it on sale.

The 1835 date is in some dispute as elsewhere it is suggested that the sauce was first launched in 1837 (that may be true as it was left to ferment in a cellar). The identity of Lord Sandys, said to be a nobleman of the Worcester area, is disputed by some.  The nobleman in question was Arthur Moyses William Sandys, 2nd Baron Sandys (1792-1860) of Ombersley Court, Worcestershire, Lieutenant-General and politician, a member of the House of Commons.

What is not disputed is that Worcestershire Sauce has been successful, however it arrived to our shores. Sauces were particularly popular during the 19th century as they gave flavour to otherwise plain food and also helped tenderise tough cuts of meat. The guarded recipe for Worcester Sauce basically remains the same today as its original. However, the advertising no longer purports to “make your hair grow beautiful.” Since 1876, the term Worcestershire Sauce can be used as a generic term for similar sauces. Today, the Lea & Perrins company is owned by Heinz.

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Martin Pollins

Managing Director at One Smart Place

Martin Pollins is a Chartered Accountant and MBA with wide experience in corporate finance and business management. He has served on the boards of several companies, including those listed on the London Stock Exchange, AIM and OFEX. He is Chairman and Founder of OneSmartPlace and was a Council member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales from 1988 to 1996. He was managing partner of PRB Martin Pollins, based in Sussex, the first Accountancy firm to advertise on British television.He went on to create and launch the CharterGroup Partnership (the UK’s first Accountancy network) and then LawGroup UK (at the time, one of the largest networks of lawyers in the UK). In recent years, he helped to raise several £millions to fund British films such as The Da Vinci Code, Bridge of San Luis Rey, Head in the Clouds and Merchant of Venice with actors such as Charlize Theron, Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, F. Murray Abraham. Kathy Bates, Gabriel Byrne, Geraldine Chaplin, Tom Hanks, Ian McKellen, Audrey Tautou, Penélope Cruz, Steven Berkoff, Lynn Collins, Jeremy Irons, Joseph Fiennes and many more.

He has written over 700 business publications (see Glossaries at https://onesmartplace.com/resources/glossaries/) and is editor of Better Business Focus (see https://onesmartplace.com/resources/better-business-focus-magazine). His Blog, on a wide range of subjects can be found at: https://onesmartplace.com/blog/

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