R. White & Sons Ltd had their main factory in Camberwell, South London, and sold their carbonated beverages (chiefly lemonade and ginger beer) in Codd bottles, stoneware bottles and glass corked/ internal-screw stoppered bottles. In the late 1880s, no deposit was charged on the bottles. R. White’s Codd bottles, made by Dan Rylands of Barnsley, have ‘No Deposit Charged on this Bottle’ embossed on them; and R. White’s leaflets of that time state that no deposit is charged either on individual bottles or crate-loads, and that the company relied on its customers to return the empties. By the late 1890s, however, certain R. White’s bottles did offer a deposit, including the small ‘beer’ bottles. These come in green, brown and clear glass, and offer one farthing for the empty bottle. (The price would have been one and a half pence.) The deposit may have been forfeit if the stopper was missing. The loss of large numbers of non-deposit bottles may have necessitated a change in company policy during the 1890s, in response to the emerging throwaway culture.
I have the exact same bottle complete with vulcanite stopper that I found in Epping Forest on the edge of West Essex Golf Club when I was 14 (1974)
Hello Jane, I live on the edge of Epping Forest and have found similar bottles there, often after downpours. R. White, Batey’s and Alabaster are the local firms whose bottles turn up most often in the forest.
I found quite a few fragments of ginger beer bottles from Alabaster’s in Epping Forest about 25 years ago at High Beach which probably originated at the King’s Oak.
Hello Jane, I have found Alabaster ginger beer bottle fragments in that same area. They may be connected with the speedway, which was the first in the country, built and sponsored by the then owners of the King’s Oak. It got going in 1927, when the stoneware bottles were still in use.