Keating's Powder

Household > Poisons

6 Comments

Keating's Powder
Keating's Powder
Year: 1910
Views: 14,416
Item #: 176
Keating's Powder Kills Beetles.
Source: The Illustrated London News. May 21, 1910

Comment by: Geoff Smith on 9th August 2023 at 12:10

Keating's Powder is mentioned in an early Agatha Christie short story, 'The Adventure of the Clapham Cook', by Hercule Poirot.
Poirot mentions, "And then there is my winter overcoat, I must lay him aside in the powder of Keatings."

Comment by: Julie Smyth on 11th August 2020 at 18:32

We’ve just found a large (rather rusted but perfectly readable) enamel sign for Keatings Powder in our garden. Would it be of historical interest? Must be at least 100 years old as they stopped trading in 1920

Comment by: Lewis on 13th September 2018 at 23:00

It’s mentioned in Maurice Drake’s 1913 book WO2, ch xiv as an aid to cleanliness onboard their cutter.

Comment by: Richard Preston on 15th October 2017 at 16:38

It was sent to the troop in 1st WW because if lice on the body in the trenches

Comment by: Francis Dove on 23rd February 2013 at 16:31

Poirot mentioned in in "The Clapham Cook".

Comment by: Dawn Jones on 13th September 2012 at 21:29

I just looked Keating's Powder up, as I've been typing my Dad's memories up again this evening. He writes:
"...and then the crickets came. We had to put Keatings powder down and you could hear the crickets chirping behind the skirting boards, and also the female ones jumping on the floor round the edge in the bedroom! Once one got behind the skirting board near the dining-room fireplace, and Dad tried to catch it on a piece of stick smeared with malt extract, but it licked the extract off the stick much to Father’s disgust." (1930s)