XL-ALL Seeds

 Get ready for our first sleuthing project of the year.  If you are a long-standing reader of the SAOEE website the letters XL-ALL may resonate with you, especially if you occasionally spin through the Questions and Questions Answered pages.

A Ryder mature company catalogue by 1930.

Since the turn of the twentieth century Samuel Ryder's company, Ryder's Seeds, had been operating successfully in the city and was a nationally known brand.  Not only did it feature a very wide range of seeds, but the company operated a mail order facility on a fast turn-round, and boasted packets from one old penny – "penny packets" as they were known.  And if there is a profitable and highly successful trader there will always be a copy-cat business person attempting to deceive purchasers into falsely believing they will be buying the genuine product.

By 1907 such a copy-cat firm was advertising seeds: "the most remarkable business enterprise of modern times.  The seeds are sold at the uniform price of 1d [one old penny] per packet."  The advert tells us that "St Albans is known the world over as the distributing centre for these seeds."  But this advertising blurb did not refer to Ryder's Seeds. This was a firm from Leytonstone, not St Albans.  Nevertheless it allegedly brought its operation here, although we should be mindful  it could just have been a registered address.  Its brand name was XL-ALL, giving the address of Hatfield Road.

When customers contacted the company they were sent catalogues which were, in part, copied versions of Ryder's Seed Catalogue.  Of course we cannot say whether or not XL-ALL actually had seeds to sell; possibly they received the orders, kept the remittances but omitted to forward the seeds.  But even if customers did receive seeds from their orders they certainly were not Ryder's seeds.

We do know that Ryder's took the upstart to court and a restraint of trade order placed on XL-ALL.

All that remains is to discover which property in Hatfield Road was in the hands of XL-ALL for this short period of time.  That is where the matter has rested for the past ten years – until last week at the end of December 2023.

I had spent an afternoon searching new and interesting movie film titles which had links to St Albans and which were lodged with the East Anglian Film Archive, storing stock from Bedfordshire, Hertfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Essex, Norfolk and Suffolk.  Among the titles I viewed was a short three-shot silent from 1907 – note that year, which was mentioned above.  The film's title was The Animated Pillar Box made by Arthur Melbourne Cooper of St Albans.

The Animated Pillar Box, shot 1
COURTESY EAST ANGLIAN FILM ARCHIVE

On this post are three key stills from the film, one of which provided a connection with the Ryder- XL-ALL story above.  Cooper just happened to include details of a company painted on a wooden gate. Today we might call it product placement, but in 1907 the details  probably just happened to be where Cooper was filming. Coincidental.

The link is:

https://eafa.org.uk/search/?q=&titleDateFrom=1890-01-01&titleDateTo=2024-12-31&perorg=&agentActivity=&locations%5B0%5D=Hertfordshire&featured=&workType=&descriptionType=&sound=&colourType=&searchSort=relevance_desc&pagination=5

The sixth title in the page list.

Why not freeze the film after the first very long shot and take in the white hand-painted sign announcing the location of XL-ALL's warehouse, apparently behind the gate.

The Animated Pillar Box, shot 2. Was this the opposite side of the road shown in shot 1?
COURTESY EAST ANGLIAN FILM ARCHIVE

The Animated Pillar Box, shot 3
COURTESY EAST ANGLIAN FILM ARCHIVE

The long first shot give us plenty of time for take in the house in the background, the T junction foregrounding downhill, with a footpath and fence behind.  The roadway appears to be rather longer than is first seen in shot one, the lower section only seen in the third and final shot.  The painted fence sign may have been nearby.

Remember, the 1907 advertisement stated the firm was in Hatfield Road, but that is a very long road, extending from St Peter's Street to Popefield at Smallford.  Perhaps it was the nearest developed location to Hatfield Road.  Or the house, of course, may have been demolished at any time since 1907.

So the question is, do you know where the house and its junction is, or was?  Any ideas anyone?