MORE than a century-and-a-half after they started making their sauce, John Lea and William Perrins have received official recognition by having their biographies included in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.

The men who first made Worcestershire Sauce in their little chemists' shop at 68 Broad Street, Worcester, in 1837 have now been added to the 60-volume work.

Lea and Perrins join fellow Worcestershire personality, the composer and conductor Sir Edward Elgar in being included in the dictionary.

The sauce makers' biography includes the famous story of how, in 1835, Marcus, Lord Sandys, of Ombersley Court went into Lea and Perrins' shop and asked them to make up a sauce recipe he had brought back from India where he was governor of Bengal.

Their concoction was so disgusting, they put the mixture to one side and were about to throw it away a few months later when they decided to try one more tasting.

This time the maturing process had transformed the liquid into a delicious sauce and by the late 1940s the product was in demand all over the world.

Andy Taylor, a spokesman for Lea and Perrins said the recognition for their founding fathers had been a long time coming.

"At last," he said. "It's great news but it's about 100 years overdue.

"We are delighted to see Lea and Perrins and their famous story get in the news once again and it's recognition of their wonderful recipe.

"It's acknowledgement of their lasting contribution."

A whole host of entrepreneurs who gave their names to British household brands is included in the new dictionary including James Pimm, the inventor of the alcoholic drink, William Jacob, of cracker fame, and sugar refiner Abram Lyle.

"Adding new lives throughout the British past is a great opportunity for the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography to follow up new areas of interest to researchers and readers," said editor Dr Lawrence Goldman.

HOW JOHN LEA AND WILLIAM PERRINS CONQUERED THE WORLD

The sauce was taken on the wagon trains of the Wild West in the 19th Century but the story goes that when the bottles fell into the hands of the Indians they used them as face paints.

When Colonel Younghusband made his pioneering visit to the forbidden city of Lhasa in 1903, he found a bottle of Worcestershire sauce on the refectory table of the Tibetan monks.

Victorian explorers in the Borneo jungle came across a tribal chief with the words 'Lea and Perrins' tattooed across his forearm.

And a bottle was on the table when Neville Chamberlain held crucial pre-war peace talks with Hitler, Mussolini and Daladier.