Members of the Kearsley family and business

Catherine Kearsley and her husband were printers and booksellers in London in the late eighteenth century. They began the commercial production of Widow Welch's Female Pills, which they claimed to have as a family recipe, in 1787. There seems to have been some contention over who was manufacturing the true Widow Welch's Recipe, since the collection includes a handbill claiming that Mrs Smithers, as the granddaughter of the Widow Welch was the only person entitled to the preparation. It continued to be a popular patent medicine until the company ceased trading in the late 1960s.