Æ token, 21mm.  SOUVENIR OF THE 1897 DIAMOND JUBILEE YEAR curved above and below BOVRIL, a crown at 12 o’clock.  R. THE GREATEST SUCCESS OF THE LONGEST REIGN above and below BOVRIL  Edge: plain.  TB2 2378; Mitchiner 8802; WE 3972.  Much original colour, EF

Ex David Rogers collection.

(1884) 1895 - 1899 Bovril Limited, 30 Farringdon Street. 1902 Bovril Ltd., 152-166 Old St., EC; factory & warehouse, 73-77 Bunhill Row, EC, and 2 & 4 Banner Street, EC; bottle stores 36 Craven St., City Road, N.
Bovril, used as a flavouring for soups, stews or porridge, or as a drink, is the trade mark of a thick, salty meat extract, developed in the 1870s by John Lawson Johnston. Available since 1886, it is currently made in Burton upon Trent, Staffs, by Unilever, UK.
The product’s name is derived from the Latin bos meaning “ox” and Johnston took the -vril suffix from Edward Bulwer-Lytton's novel The Coming Race of 1870, the plot of which involves a superior race, the Vril-ya, who derive their powers from an electromagnetic substance called Vril.