Lea and Perrins' sauce is a kind of anchovy sauce first produced in in 1837 as a food seasoning. Although the origin of the recipe is unclear, it does owe some credit to Indian food spices, the Lea and Perrins' chemists of Worcestershire, and the tradition of garum, anchovey paste, consumption in ex-roman provinces.
http://www.leaperrins.com/History
John wheeley Lea and William Henry Perrins, pharmacists, allegedly first produced the sauce in England at the request of Lord Sandys <https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baron_Sandys> to replicate a tamarind sauce he had sampled whle governer of benghal, India. The trio's first effort was stored in a wood barrel due to being a suspected failure. However, when sampled after a year, the sauce's sublime flavour was discovered. The first bottle was sold in 1838, with the first bottle sold in America in 1840 in New York by John Duncan & Sons.
By 1843, annual production was 14500 bottles.
After the introduction of pasteurization in 1864, the technique was adopted in the manufacturing process....and production continued until the company outgrew the Lea and Perrin's pharmacy in 1898 and moved to a modern factory in Aston. The sauce, due to popularity, was licensed for production in America in a factory in New Jersey. Edward VII gave the company royal warrant in 1904, although the website says it was queen victoria, that is unlikely since she died in 1901. I imagine they could be reffering to Edward's wife, queen Alexandra. Anyway, After ownership by HP sauce in the 1930s, Lea and Perrin's was eventually sold to Heinz by Danone in 2005. The patent lid was introduced in 1958 and the modern bottle in 1985.
The original recipe was recently rediscovered in 2009 from documents kept by the pharmacy in the 1830s.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/food/ ... -skip.html
https://youtu.be/TZznz1vs2sk
The sauce is made from pickeled onion and garlic in a vinegar base, salt cured anchovies, and the spice blend itself which includes tamarind and chili and sugar. The mixture is fermented in steel tanks for 18 months.