Ovaltine Boats

With its tastefully decorated fleet of boats, beverage brand Ovaltine was once a significant canal-carrier. We explore the brand's boating history…

On its 200th anniversary year, we looked back at Cadbury’s long association with canals (‘Cadbury’s and Canals’,  WW December 2024). While the chocolate-maker is perhaps the best-known company to have favoured waterways transportation in the 20th century, there was another household brand that also continued to rely heavily on water transport until fairly late: Ovaltine.

Swiss company A. Wander Ltd introduced the health drink Ovaltine to Britain in 1909. Made from barley, milk and whey (and sometimes cocoa), it had been developed by chemist Albert Wander and was originally called ‘Ovalmaltine’. It quickly proved popular here, so, in 1913 the company decided to build a factory at Kings Langley to manufacture the drink in this country.

Canalside premises

A site was chosen beside the Grand Junction Canal and this soon proved ideal. The railway was close at hand giving good communications with London where the company’s headquarters were located; there was open country nearby where fresh farm produce could be obtained, and there were local people available to work – nearly 50 were taken on as soon as the factory began production. Equally importantly, the canal enabled coal to be delivered direct from the Midlands collieries.

Initially the coal was needed mainly for the drying process but, as production built up, more and more of the manufacturing process was mechanised leading to the need for increased power. This was particularly so from 1923 onwards. The coal was sourced from the collieries served by the Coventry Canal and initially it was delivered to the works by horse-drawn narrowboats – the main contractor being Samuel Barlow of Tamworth, who was already delivering to other works on the canal.

Expanding the fleet

The growth in coal deliveries was such that in 1925 the company decided it would invest in its own fleet of narrowboats and at the end of December motor boat Albert and butty Georgette were delivered from the boatyard of W.H. Walker & Brothers Ltd at Rickmansworth. Albert was named after the son of the founder George Wander, he having taken over from his father as managing director. Over the next four years a further seven pairs were delivered from the Rickmansworth yard enabling the company to be increasingly less dependent on the services of what had become Samuel Barlow (Tamworth) Ltd.

A well-presented fleet

The Ovaltine fleet was always well-maintained and smart. Indeed, Wanders recognised the advertising potential in its craft, with the cabin side bearing the message ‘Drink Delicious Ovaltine for Health’. Initially the cabin side included ‘A. Wander Ltd’, but later this was omitted – instead the decoration included a rondel design incorporating the initials ‘AW’ and depicting the sun, presumably reflecting the health-giving properties of the product.

The overall colour scheme was a dark blue, almost black, cabin side with the lettering in pale yellow except for ‘Ovaltine’ that was featured prominently in red, lined with white. An attractive feature was a long tail from the ‘e’ of ‘Ovaltine’ running under the name almost to the ‘O’. On the butties the boat’s name appeared on the stern and on the motors at the front of the cabin side. All the boats carried a full measure of traditional decoration with the cratches having the ‘Drink Delicious Ovaltine for Health’ message painted in yellow, which showed up well against the dark background.

The pride in the appearance of the boats reflected in the stability of the boatmen, some of whom served aboard them for many years, including members of the Stokes, Taylor, Walker and Garner families.

This is an extract of the 'Ovaltine Boats' article that appears in Waterways World June 2025