History of Petrol, Oil and Associated Companies

ACME MOTOR SPIRIT - see also DOMINION MOTOR SPIRIT Co Ltd. Acme - derives from the Greek "akme the highest point of perfection or achievement". Acme was owned by the Dominion Co and was used both in automobiles and aeroplanes. A report in the 1933 September issue of the Flight magazine reported that the Folkestone Air Race was won on Acme-Dominion Motor Spirit so seemingly living up to the Greek definition. This brand disappeared by the time of WW2.

LINKS - Acme enamel sign

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ANGLO-AMERICAN OIL COMPANY LTD was formed in 1888 and its main business was the shipment of lamp oil from America to the UK known as "Royal Daylight". The company was a British affiliate of the Standard Oil Trust which had been set up and run by John D Rockefeller. The head office was situated at Bishopsgate, London and a storage facility was located at Purfleet in Essex. The company later had offices at 36 Queen Anne's Gate London SW3 and other storage facilities. In 1911, following a ruling by the US Supreme Court, the dissolution of the Standard Oil Trust took place. This resulted in over 30 separate companies becoming independent. Standard Oil of New Jersey was one of them and acquired the Anglo-American Oil Company. By this time the AAOC was importing motor spirit and as the motor industry started to grow the company introduced different brands - Pratt's Perfection Spirit, Anglo's Taxibus Spirit for commercial vehicles, Anglo's Benzole - a mixture of coal-tar and petrol, Pratts Ethyl - a mixture of alcohol and petrol, Pratts High Test and straight Pratts. In 1934 re branding took place and the AAOC took a phonetic version of the initials of Standard Oil - "ess_o" as the new brand and Pratts was no more.

Pratts advertising is seen with and without the apostrophe i.e. PRATT'S and PRATTS. A popular slogan was "Pratts from the Golden Pump". About 1930 Pratts advertised their ethyl petrol with the slogan "Drive with Ethyl" and a caricature of a lady with hat. They promoted this in a variety of ways with giveaway badges showing a slender petrol pump with Ethyl's head as the globe and with round orange transfers of Ethyl on 2 gallon petrol cans.

LINKS - Pratts and Anglo's Petrol Cans I Globes I Signage I Paper Advertising

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BRAENDER AUTOMOBILE BULLDOG TIRES was formed by Philip Braender in 1912 with the Bulldog becoming a familiar logo. Mr Braender had emigrated to the United States from Germany in the 1860's and became a respected builder and real estate trader but he had other business ambitions as well and so the Braender Tire Company was born. A tire factory was situated at Passiac New Jersey and when Mr Braender died in 1916 he left an estate valued at $1,000,000. Some time after Philip Braender had died the company became known as Braender Rubber & Tire Co with its main business address situated at Rutherford, New Jersey, USA.

LINKS - Braender Signage

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BRITISH PETROLEUM "BP" a name that has been synonymous with the petrol industry for as long as people can remember was only officially adopted as the trading name of the company in 1954 although the brand "BP" was first used some 45 odd years earlier. The earliest beginnings of the company go back to 1901 when an Englishman, William Knox D'Arcy, negotiated a 60 year oil exploration agreement with the Shah of Persia. Money soon started to run out and D'Arcy sold out the majority of his oil rights to a Glasgow based consortium called "the Burmah Oil Company". This new company formed a subsidiary in 1909 which traded as "the Anglo-Persian Oil Company" (APOC). Winston Churchill, on behalf of the British government, later entered into negotiations with APOC to secure oil supplies for the new oil burning engines of the Royal Navy and by 1913 the British government had not only secured those supplies but had also taken a controlling interest in APOC. This then was very nearly the start of British Petroleum under British control but another crucial element had to be put into place.

In 1917 a company called "the British Petroleum Company", which had been created by German firms to exploit the oil market in the UK, was purchased from trustees after the British government seized its assets in 1914 and this became a marketing subsidiary of APOC. To all intents and purposes BP had arrived - again but this time it was British through and through. This part owned German company, which had been formed in 1906, had previously entered into an agreement with Shell to be an agency for the sale of Shell petrol in the UK which was also marketed as B.P. Motor Spirit. Shell took over the responsibility of marketing their own brands of petrol from 1917 once the agency agreement with the British Petroleum Company had expired. Prior to the first world war the three main brands of motor spirit in the UK were; Pratts, Shell and BP.

1931 saw BP link up with Shell again in a new joint marketing operation, this time the new company was called Shell-Mex and B.P. Ltd after Shell had earlier entered into a joint partnership with Mexican Eagle. This new joint marketing operation was to prove very profitable particularly in the difficult trading conditions of the 1930's. The partnership lasted some 45 years when in 1976 the companies de merged their marketing operations. During this period three brands of petrol were retailed by the partnership - BP, Shell and Shell-Mex. In 1934 Shell-Mex and B.P. Ltd acquired The Dominion Motor Spirit Company, and in 1958 the National Benzole Company Ltd joined the organisation. At all times both BP and Shell-Mex kept their separate corporate identities as they both had extensive worldwide business interests.

By 1935 APOC had become AIOC - the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, this was due to Persia changing its name to Iran, and in 1954 the name was changed again and the company became officially known as "British Petroleum".

Other acquisitions took place when in 1967 the company took over the chemical interests of the Distillers Company and then in 1998 British Petroleum merged with the US giant, Amoco. By 2000 the global name of the company had become BP with a new trade mark - the Helios. Other companies owned by APOC were Scottish Oils Ltd who was in the Shale Oil business, there were oil interests in Turkey, agreements with Shell-Mex and in later years British Petroleum took over Price's Oils, The National Benzole Company Ltd and latterly, Castrol Ltd. This short history is just a snap shot of a huge global business that continues today.

After the great war marketing of petrol by BP got under way with new logos and advertising campaigns. A.R.Saunders of BP marketing designed the BP shield in 1920, this was the first time the "BP" letters used in their advertising media had pointed extremities which are easily recognisable. It is here that a distinction can be drawn between the marketing/advertising of the German involved BP and the British owned BP. Advertising styles of the first BP would probably have continued right up to 1920 just prior to when A.R.Saunders launched the new logos with the stylised B and P.

Early enamel signage such as the prussian blue BP Motor Spirit enamel signs which for safety reasons (the blue enamel was poisonous in production) was replaced with a red enamel seem to point to the German BP. Then there was the world famous Union flag enamel sign which left no doubt as to the origins of the brand or did it? These signs probably date to 1920 just prior to the re-design by Saunders when British Petroleum meant just that. BP was also marketed as the winning motor spirit during the 1920’s and 30’s when motor racing was at the fore and perhaps BP’s most famous advertising was the “BP Winner" enamel sign depicting a racing car crossing the finishing line. Petrol pumps which had started to be installed around 1920 by BP were originally painted red but following changes to the colour schemes of the company's overseas operations pumps then became green. In 1921 BP had a total of 69 pumps in the UK with petrol still being sold in shops and chemists in 2 gallon cans but by 1925 the number of company controlled petrol pumps had risen to approximately 6,000. Evolvement of the petrol pump continued and in 1959 BP petrol stations were upgraded with "Supermix" petrol pumps which delivered various blends of petrol from the one pump. The associated advertising media of petrol pump globes vary in design and shape and this can be seen from those that are illustrated on this site which are all A.R. Saunders derivatives.

LINKS - BP Petrol Cans I Petrol Pump Globes I Signage

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CLEVELAND PETROLS, with 5 grades of petrol, was an independent company operating in the North East of England. "Cleveland" was the trade mark of The Petroleum Storage and Finance Corporation Ltd and is perhaps best known for its brand "Cleveland Discol" - an alcohol fuel. This was a blend of distilled alcohol (ethanol) and refined petrol and was regarded as a superior petrol. "Discol" was the trade mark of the Distillers Company Ltd. The other well known brand was "Cleveland Benzole Mixture". Benzole was a mixture of a coal-tar product and petrol and which was first commercially produced between the wars by various companies and sold under a variety of trade names. In 1938 a controlling interest was taken in Cleveland by the Anglo-American Oil Company and Cleveland Petrols became a subsidiary of the Esso Petroleum Co Ltd. Cleveland continued to trade under its brand name through its nationwide network of garages but by the early 1970's Esso re branded those garages into its own network and the Cleveland name disappeared.

Typical of advertising in general Cleveland's image can be divided into the very plain and boring and the very appealing. This can be seen through its advertising media of enamel signs. An example of this is to be found by comparing the superb Cleveland Discol Alcohol signage as against the dreary and boring black Cleveland Guaranteed sign both of which are illustrated on this site. The company's petrol pump globes are attractive from the early winged designs right through to its pill shaped globes. The oblong Cleveland Guaranteed globe seems an oddity but from examination of Cleveland advertising from about 1948 through to the late 1950's Cleveland Petrol Stations had banks of petrol pumps adorned with a winged globe followed by a pump with an oblong globe.

LINKS - Cleveland Petrol Cans I Petrol Pump Globes I Signage

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BRIEF COMPANY HISTORY