Heritage Archive

Dr Campbell qualified at St Bartholomew's Hospital and spent over 20 years at the North-West London Hospital. In 1925 he founded Bickiepegs.

Dr Campbell's paper ran in The Lancet across July and August 1903. It argued that a growing mouth needs real work to do, and that softer diets were giving it less.

Two years after the company began in North London, baking moved to Welwyn Garden City in Hertfordshire.

On 17 March 1934, the Duchess of York’s lady-in-waiting wrote to confirm permission to use the words “used in the Royal nursery” with Bickiepegs. Princess Margaret had used them when she was teething.

On 17 July 1936, the Duchess of York’s office wrote back after reading Dr Campbell’s pamphlet on children’s diet, adding that the little Princess Margaret Rose had “the advantage of your Bickiepegs during these last years”.

Wartime rationing had put biscuits on points. In December 1948 Bickiepegs came off them, and the BBC news bulletin announced it.

Princess Elizabeth's lady-in-waiting wrote to thank us for a parcel of Bickiepegs for Princess Anne, adding that the Princess remembered a similar present sent for Prince Charles.

A 14-minute colour film on children's teeth by dental surgeon Margaret Seward, made with help from the Royal Society of Medicine Film Unit.

“Used in the Royal nursery” was still on the pack when Prince William was teething, and the papers speculated whether he was using Bickiepegs on his grandmother’s recommendation.

Bickiepegs has appeared on TV in Coronation Street, George & Mildred, Cutting It, Peak Practice and Call the Midwife, on the BBC 6 o’clock news after the war, in books by Pam Ayres, Stephen Booth and Elspeth Wills, and in an exhibit at the National Museum of Childhood. Over the years we’ve also had letters from Downing Street and from Jane Asher.