British Petroleum, King's Cross

Sadly the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico isn't the first and won't be the last major environmental disaster caused by extracting industries. As a major player in that field, BP has had its fair share of catastrophes and has lots to answer for.
Still, let's move away from the current controversies to the post-First World War years, a time when BP was just a trade mark of the Anglo-Persian Oil Company (the name was changed to the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company in 1935 and to the British Petroleum Company in 1954. In 1998 it became BP Amoco and finally BP in 2000. The new name doesn't mean anything). Indeed the slogan "BP The British Petrol" seems to appear on adverts printed between 1924 and 1928 only. Consequently it is reasonable to assume the painted sign below date from the mid-1920s. By then the company's logo, with the boxy 'B' and 'P', with wings on their edges, was relatively new. It had been designed by company employee A R Saunders in 1920.


Once more we've got several ads painted on this wall. The most obvious one is of course BP
The British Petrol
Of the other ones, only a couple of words are still legible but one may well have been for some breakfast cereals.Creamed
B...ey [Barley]
... [Breakfast?] Food
Something else was written in red and there was the drawing of a box on the left. What they were for may remain a mystery.

Location: King's Cross Road / Picture taken on: 19/03/2008