Lea & Perrins Worcestershire Sauce has been popular around the world for over a century. According to legend, the sauce originated in India and was a favorite of Lord Sandys, an English nobleman from the county of Worcester. Upon returning home in 1835 from his travels, Sandys approached two chemists, John Lea and William Perrins, who owned a thriving apothecary. Asked if they would replicate a recipe Sandys had acquired in India, the men kindly concurred. Their finished product, however, was a disappointment, a fiery hot mixture that the chemists banished to their cellar. 
 
Some two years later, Lea and Perrins stumbled across their concoction and decided to taste it again. To their surprise, the recipe had mellowed. Now delightfully pungent and aromatic, it had matured much like a fine wine. Its new flavor so impressed the chemists that they immediately bought the recipe from Lord Sandys and in 1838 launched the sauce commercially. Within a year or two, the bottled sauce was imported into the U.S. by John Duncan & Sons of New York. By 1849, the condiment was being sold west of the Mississippi as thousands of gold seekers made their way to California’s gold fields. 
 
In 1865, when the SS Republic departed from New York harbor, it carried a large cargo of two sizes of Lea & Perrins Worcestershire Sauce bottles. More than 250 bottles were recovered from the wreck site. All bear the original Lea & Perrins embossment, which by the early 1920s was replaced by a paper label. The glass-and-cork stopper was in use until 1957 when replaced by a screw cap.
 
Whereas every effort has been made to choose the best examples of shipwreck artifacts for our collectors, some blemishes and imperfections will be evident due to the harsh conditions the pieces have been subjected to during their years in the deep ocean.