Occasionally I get the odd email asking “What does HP Stand for?” to which I will typically reply “Why, Houses of Parliament of course!” This is precisely how I responded to a number of queries this past week on exactly this question. The difference this time is that one individual took things to another level and challenged me with an article she had found on Yahoo.com which in turn references the HP Sauce page at wikipedia.org, which interestingly enough links back to this very site (how profound!).

This same site visitor even went as far as to admit that she was spending a considerable amount of time researching this topic and at one point she even had 10 of her friends doing the same thing! But it didn’t stop there. Uxbridge, England radio station KISS 100 FM also received this question to which they promptly put the call out to local area listeners! If you were one such listener who perhaps heard this question put to you on KISS 100 FM, you know know how it all started.

Hopefully I can help put this question to rest. I’ll start first with Wikipedia as referenced from Yahoo answers:

“Some stories suggest that the name HP was derived from the name Harry Palmer. Palmer was said to have invented the recipe and sold the product as “Harry Palmer’s Famous Epsom Sauce”. The story then goes that Palmer, an avid gambler at the Epsom races, was forced to sell the recipe (to cover his debts) to F.G. Garton, a grocer from Nottingham. However, there is no evidence in the official history of the brand to show Palmer existed, or had any claim to the development of the recipe. It also seems unlikely that Garton, a grocer from the Midlands would have come in contact with a gambler from the South of England.”

In the documentation I have available to me (both official and unofficial accounts), I too can find no reference to the name “Harry Palmer”. The response that I ultimately supplied to my inquisitive site visitors was a paraphrased account of the official line:

“HP Sauce does indeed stand for “Houses of Parliament”. In the late 1800’s Edwin Samson Moore (founder of the Midland Vinegar Company, Birmingham, later to become HP Foods) visited the Nottingham grocer F.E. Garton who had an outstanding debt with the Midland Vinegar Company. At the time, Mr Moore was actively seeking a good sauce recipe to expand the business. While visiting Mr Garton, with his son Eddie, they spotted bottles marked “Garton’s HP Sauce”. Mr Garton had created a sauce and was then selling it to the local market. It was a perfect fit and was exactly what they were looking for. Within minutes, Mr Moore settled Mr Garton’s debt and bought the recipe for £150. When asked what the name stood for, Mr Garton told him that he had heard a rumour that a bottle of his sauce had been seen in the restaurant of the Houses of Parliament. Mr Moore instantly loved the idea and the name stuck. It was sold for some by the Midland Vinegar Company as “Garton’s HP Sauce” and later changing to simply “HP Sauce”.”

Indeed on January 26th, 2007 BBC Nottingham featured HP Sauce in a segment on the television programme “East Midlands Today” where they too credit F.E. Garton as the original proprietor of HP Sauce. Incidentally, this video was made available for a short time on the BBC Nottingham website, however it was unfortunately closed to viewers outside the UK (including myself).

Garton's HP Sauce Label
cira 1920’s

If one looks at some early examples of HP Sauce labels, The Midland Vinegar Company even went as far as listing “Houses of Parliament” in small print under the famous “HP Sauce” designation. The labelling from this era dates back to a time when HP Sauce would’ve been much less well known than it is today and including the descriptive “Houses of Parliament” on the label would’ve served as a means of establishing itself as a brand.

Together with the evidence provided above, I can say with some certainty that the name HP Sauce does in fact stand for “Houses of Parliament”.

There is however some controversy surrounding how Birmingham’s Midland Vinegar Company actually acquired the rights to produce Garton’s HP Sauce (Nottingham). Naturally, this account never did make it into the official press release and subsequent books on the subject. It has been told to me that the arrangement made between Mr Garton and Mr Moore was somewhat less amicable than what is officially stated. Unfortunately I cannot divulge any more on the matter until this story’s source sorts out some legalese surrounding the matter. Once it is sorted, I will make efforts to amend the story as told here.

If you have more information on this story which you believe should be included, by all means write me or add your comments below.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 06th, 2007 at 2:02pm. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.