Seed Merchants, Frederick F. Hallett Cereal Seed Bag Seal

Frederick F. Hallett Cereal Bag Seal, Image & Found by Simonthesearcher.
Found in Wiltshire, ?mm.

One side has BRIGHTON across the middle with a dash dot dash device above and below and curved around the edge is FREDERICK F. HALLETT * The other side has PEDIGREE across the middle with TRADE above and MARK below. Around the edge of thia is CEREALES GENEALOGIOUES * From this it is assumed that the seal was attached to bags of seed cereal.

Company No: 22735; Halletts Pedigree Seed Company Ltd. Incorporated in 1886. Registered 5/6/1886. “To … carry into effect an Agreement … made between Major Frederick Francis Hallett, FLS, … and William Anselm Gurney Taylor … for aquiring … the ‘Pedigree’ Seed Business, for many years carried out by the said F.F.Hallett at the ‘Manor House’ Kemp Town, Brighton, together with the Trade Mark, ‘Pedigree,’ 'as applied to Cereals and all kinds of plants,’ and the Stock growing on the Selecting Grounds of all the latest selections of every kind of Seed worked on by him.” No company return for 1894. Company dissolved by notice in the London Gazette 31/12/1895. Source - Board of Trade: Companies Registration Office: Files of Dissolved Companies, held by The National Archives, Kew.

The 1881 Census shows the residence of Major (ret'd) Frederick F Hallett to be The Manor House, Brighton, Sussex but this may be another Frederick Hallett.

From East Brighton Bygones - "With regard to the seal with Frederick Francis Hallett's name on he was a farmer of Wheat and Barley at Manor Farm Brighton. see- www.orpheusweb.co.uk/john.rose/ttech.html he was my 3xs G.Grandfathers 2nd Son, his father William Hallett, was 2nd Mayor of Brighton , JP and Alderman and built the Manor house in Brighton, but lived on Marine Parade, hope the website helps. By Anonymous On 17/09/2010"

From Terminator Technology - "In 1860, fully five years before Abbe Gregor Mendel published his obscure tome on the genetics of peas, launching so-called "modern" plant breeding, a certain Major Hallett, F.L.S., of Brighton was warning farmers and fellow seedsmen that any abuse of his "pedigree" trademark for cereals would be "severely dealt with".(1) But his seeds were not patentable and there was little he could do to keep farmers from buying his wheat varieties, sowing them, selecting the best seed for the next season, and breeding their own varieties uniquely adapted to local soils, slopes, and weather."

See Darwin Correspondence Project, From F.F. Hallett 21 May 1875.

The International Exhibition of 1862, Volume 1, Hallet, Frederick Francis, The Manor House, Brighton, Sussex- Hallet's Pedigree Nursery wheat.

Pedigree cereals medal - British Museum.