Place Name
Eugen Sandow (April 2, 1867 – October 14, 1925) was a German bodybuilder and showman from Prussia also known as Sandow the Great. In 1899 he came to England to take part in a strongman competition and after he won, stayed in the country, organising what is believed to be the world’s first major body building competition, at the Albert Hall, two years later. He is regarded by many as the father of modern bodybuilding. But it wasn’t for his prowess that he is remembered here. For among other things Sandow was an extremely canny businessman, and is widely credited with being among the first – if not the first – to push supplements on his devoted followers (of which there were many). His first foray into this venture was Plasmon which he called an “excellent strength builder” from Germany adding: “A German soldier can live for two months on one biscuit made of this material measuring about a foot (30.48cm) square.” Conor Heffernan writing on his blog Physical Culture Study says: “In 1911, Sandow took his first real plunge into the supplement industry with the creation of ‘Sandow’s Health and Strength Cocoa’. The cocoa itself was similar enough to Plasmon in that it was seen as a rudimentary protein drink…” It was produced from a factory in Hayes and initially was a roaring success – the road leading to the factory was named Sandow Avenue. But his good fortune was short-lived, rivals producing cheaper products ate into his margin and in 1914 the First World War broke out, resulting in open anti-German sentiment. In 1916 the Sandow Cocoa Company went into liquidation, the building and assets passed to the Hayes Cocoa Company which was owned by Swiss chocolate company Peter, Cailler, Kohler, which in turn was bought out by the Nestlé Company in 1929 (Sandow Avenue was later changed to Nestle’s Avenue). As for Sandow, he died at his home in Kensington (which bought for him by an admirer), from an aortic aneurysm. His wife, with whom he had two daughters, buried him an unmarked grave in Putney Vale Cemetery, supposedly on the grounds that he had been unfaithful.
