This box is the Princess Mary Gift Box. It is a brass tin that would have contained a variety of gifts. It was intended to be distributed to all members of the armed forces of the British Empire in 1914, following the outbreak of the First World War. The tins, designed by Stanley Davenport Adshead and Stanley C. Ramsey, were decorated with an embossed image of Mary in profile surrounded by a laurel leaf, with her ‘M’ monograph either side. 

The photo for the embossed image was taken at the studio of Mr E. Brooks of Buckingham Palace Road. The words ‘Imperium Britannicum’ (The British Empire) are at the top, with a sword and scabbard either side and at the bottom are the words ‘Christmas 1914’ flanked by bows of battleships on a heavy sea. In the corners are the names of the Allies – Belgium, Japan, Montenegro and Servia, with France and Russia either side. The contents varied depending on whom they were being sent. The standard gift ow (also known as the smoker’s gift) contained 20 cigarettes in yellow monogrammed paper, an ounce of pipe tobacco, a pipe, a Christmas card and a photograph of Princess Mary. It was supposed to contain a tinder lighter but due to shortage of these, they were often substituted with other gifts and those in the navy received a bullet pencil (a silver tipped pencil in a case made from a spent .303 cartridge from UK firing ranges and marked with an M). 

A non-smokers gift, produced at a ratio of 1 for every 28 smokers’ gifts (non-smokers made up around 4% of the British forces) contained a packet of acid tablets, a khaki writing case, paper and pencil. Sikh troops received sweets and spices and nurses received chocolate instead of tobacco. 
Boxes were manufactured by Barclay & Fry, Barringer, Wallis & Manners and Hudson & Scott. Both tobacco and chocolate have definite links to the British Empire’s history. 

The trade and consumption of tobacco is strongly linked to the transatlantic trade in enslaved Africans. Tobacco was one of the first tropical products to fuel colonial trade and by the mid-17th century, tobacco was established as one of the main goods used by the Portuguese, Dutch, French and English to buy enslaved people on the African coast. Tobacco was grown in some North American colonies, mainly in Virginia, Maryland and North Virginia to supply the English market. While initially cultivated by indentured servants, by the second half of the 1600s planters began replacing their workforce with enslaved Africans. 

Now dependent on enslavement in order to be commercially viable, soaring American tobacco exports created a constant demand for more enslaved labour. For those who fell victim to Europe’s transatlantic trade in Africans, life on an American tobacco plantation was one of relentless, back breaking work, brutal punishments, fear, malnutrition, disease, and often, an early death. Chocolate entered Britain in the mid-17th century, first as a luxury drink. It was introduced through Spanish colonial trade, with Spain controlling major cacao-producing regions in Central and South America and South East Asia. By the 1660s, chocolate houses (similar to coffeehouses) were popular among elites in London. 

As Britain expanded its empire, it sought to secure its own sources of cacao rather than depend on Spanish colonies. The British captured Jamaica in 1655, gaining access to one of the Caribbean’s largest cacao producers. British merchants gradually built a supply chain linking Caribbean cacoa plantations, transatlantic shipping and factories in Britain. Chocolate’s connection to the empire cannot be separated from the transatlantic trade in Africans. Cacao plantations in the Caribbean (Jamaica, Trinidad, Grenada, and later British Guiana) relied heavily on enslaved African labour. After abolition of slavery (1833–38), many plantations struggled. 

The Industrial Revolution transformed chocolate from a luxury into a mass-market product. Industrial chocolate required cheap, steady supplies of cacao—which pushed Britain to expand its colonial sourcing. After Caribbean production declined, Britain turned to West Africa, with the key region of the Gold Coast (Ghana). British colonial authorities encouraged cacao farming in the late 19th century.