ESSO PETROLEUM CO LTD beginnings go back to 1888 and the Anglo- American Oil Company, a British affiliate of the Standard Oil Trust. One of its first trades was the shipment of Lamp Oil (Paraffin) from America to England. It was the first foreign affiliate of John D Rockefeller's US company the Standard Oil Trust. The head office was situated at Bishopsgate, London and a storage facility was located at Purfleet in Essex. In 1911, following a ruling by the US Supreme Court, the dissolution of the Standard Oil Trust took place. This resulted in over 30 separate companies becoming independent. Standard Oil of New Jersey was one of them and acquired the Anglo-American Oil Company which had brands under different names - Pratt's being one of them. In 1935 re branding took place and the AAOC took a phonetic version of the initials of Standard Oil - "ess_o" as the new brand but it was not until 1951 that Esso was formerly adopted as the company name.

For more details of the early history of Esso please see the history for the Anglo-American Oil Company

The Esso brands replacing the Pratts brands were:

Esso Ethyl Petrol
Esso High Test Petrol
Esso Benzol Mixture
Essolube Motor Oil

Esso made full use of the growing television medium and became a worldwide name but perhaps the company is best known in the UK for its "Esso Blue" and "Put a Tiger in Your Tank" advertising campaigns of the 1950's/1960's. The Esso Tiger of 1936 re-appeared after the war in 1953 and soon became a worldwide household name with the slogan "Put a Tiger in Your Tank". In contrast to the earlier Esso Tiger's the 1960's version had become a cuddly friendly fellow.