Latest News and Features: Famous Doncastrian: Samuel Parkinson
Butterscotch, the word, was first recorded in Doncaster, where Samuel Parkinson began making it in 1817. It was one of the highlights of race week, to buy a tin of Parkinson's Butterscotch, which also had the royal seal.
Parkinson's shop was called Capo, or Upstairs Downstairs on the High Street. This Georgian shop was vacated by Parkinson’s in 1960. It was restored and brought back into use in 1976.
S Parkinson & Son (Doncaster) Ltd was established by Samuel Parkinson, confectioner, grocer and tea dealer, in High Street Doncaster in the early nineteenth century. The Parkinson family connection ceased in 1893 on the sale of the business to Samuel Balmforth and a sleeping partner. Incorporation as a limited company followed in 1912.
Thereafter the main emphasis of the business was on the manufacture of confectionery which had begun in the mid-ninteenth century with the production of baking powder and the firm's best known product, Parkinson's Doncaster Butterscotch. In 1961 the company was acquired by the Hollands Confectionery Group which was itself taken over by the Cavenham Food Group in 1965. The business ceased production in 1977, and the surviving records were then transferred to the Archives Department.
