Two of the best known trademarks in one place! For many years Mr Therm was the image of the UK gas industry and Mr Mercury (here in his older guise) was the logo for the National petrol company. The advert was issued in 1938 by the National Benzole Company, founded in 1919 to use the gasworks by-product benzole as a petrol fuel additive. Given the strength of the UK’s coal and gas industries at the time, benzole derived fuels were seen, rightly, as being a valuable use of domestic resources.The benzole became a 50/50% mix along with petrol. The company in post-war years, as other fuel additives became available, came closer to the BP company, and merged in 1957. The brand, and its distinctive petrol stations, was phased out in the 1990s.

Mr Therm is an old favourite – developed as a marketing tool by the London based Gaslight & Coke Company in the early 1930s, and designed by Eric Fraser, Mr Therm was adopted by the wider UK gas industry both pre- and post-nationalisation. The advert is therefore a fine play on two phrases – the starting power alluded to and that was a feature of benzole additive fuel – and the ‘spirit of British coal’, in that it was fractionated as part of the manufacturing of coal gas.

via Flickr http://flic.kr/p/stNKiz