“Who is the sailor who appears on Player’s cigarette packets?”
Well, Player’s Cigarettes were one of two main employers in the area. Their ‘Navy Cut’ cigarettes were very popular choice, becoming the number one UK brand for a number of years. The term ‘Navy Cut’ refers to how RN sailors (19th and 20th century to 1953) would wind twine around rolls of tobacco leaves allowing them to mature under compression, and then slice off the end shredding the tobacco.
The ‘Hero’ sailor used as a trade mark for the brand was modelled on Thomas Huntley Wood, a crewmember of HMS Edinburgh. The logos were developed for an advertising campaign in 1891 and trademarked in 1893.
Text and image found at “Adventures of the black gang”
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