MINERAL WATERS AND MEDICINAL SPRINGS OF ESSEX. 223
public. Each bottle sold by him bore, he says, his name and the
words "West Tilbury Hall." At this period, and for at least
ten years later, Ellison was advertising the Tilbury water
extensively in the London newspapers and seems to have had a
good sale for it.
When Dr. Trinder wrote, in 1783, West Tilbury Hall and
the well upon it belonged to Lieut.-Col. Hunt, of the West
Essex Militia.100 Trinder, describing the water, says101 that it
" is of an amber colour, like pale rum, and it has a full and soft taste in the
mouth, not unlike that of milk and water, and it is inodorous."
After detailing the results of seventeen experiments on it, he
continues :—
" This water hath been found to be very useful in the cure of diseases arising
from acidity in the first passages, such as heart-burn, sour eructations, flatus,
and indigestion ; "
adding that he believes it will be found valuable in certain
forms of gout, and that it is "recommended by a crowd of cases,
as efficacious in the cure of diarrhea, and even dysentery."
Somewhat before this time Ellison had employed Dr. Bryan
Higgins, an eminent London physician and chemist,102 to analyse
the water. Higgins visited the well on 22nd September 1779,
and obtained some of the water. Having analysed it, he
reported,103 on 11th October following, that he had found one
Winchester Gallon to contain :—
" Two quarts of acidulous gas (which is, in density, to temperate atmospheric air,
nearly as 2 to 1) are contained [he adds] in each gallon of this water, beyond the
quantity of acidulous gas retained by the calcareous earth above mentioned, in
the heat of boiling water."
100 Medicinal Waters in Essex, p. i (1783). Morant says (Hist. of Essex, i , p. 231) that, after
Kellaway's death in 1737, his widow sold the estate to Capt. Richard Micklefield, late of the
East India Company's service, who left it to his nephew, Richard Hunt, Esq.
101 Op. cit., pp. 1-8.
102 Dr. Higgins (1737 ?-1820) was born at Sligo and took his degree of M.D. at Leyden. He
spent most of his life in London, but paid extended visits to the West Indies.
103 Synopsis of Analyses of Noted Mineral Waters, p. 1 (1788). At some other time, Higgins
had made another analysis of the water, with slightly different results (See Trinder, Medicinal
Waters, pp. 5-6 (1783).