Unusual Artifacts: The Scout Biscuit Tin, 1911

Scout Tin
Produced for Carr & Co., 1911
The Victoria & Albert Museum

This is the “Scout” biscuit tin—a creation of tinplate and offset lithograph, printed with a portrait of Lord Baden-Powell. British biscuit tins are highly collectible and many examples from the Victorian era through the present day survive—in varying conditions. The British biscuit tin came about with the Licensed Grocer's Act of 1861 which allowed groceries to be individually packaged and sold. The new process of offset lithography, patented in 1877, allowed multicolored designs to be printed on to unusually shaped tins.


The most ornate designs were manufactured in the early years of the Twentieth Century, just before the First World War. In the 1920s and 1930s, tins for the Christmas season, intended to appeal primarily to children, were the most exceptional examples.

The “Scout” tin was produced in 1911—the year of the coronation of King George V and Queen Mary. This tin was made by Hudson Scott & Sons for Carr & Co, to commemorate the founding of the Boy Scouts—a cause which King George V and his sons heartily supported.