The brothers-in-law James Pryde and William Nicholson set up their design business in 1894 and worked together until 1899, creating large, pared-down posters that owed an influence to the French poster work of artists including Alphonse Mucha and Toulouse Lautrec. They took their partnership name of 'Beggarstaff Brothers' from the name they saw on a bag of animal food in a stable. As Nicholson said: 'It is a good, hearty, old English name and it appealed to us, so we adopted it immediately.'

Tradition relates that Pryde & Nicholson carried their enormous poster design for this Cinderella poster to Drury Lane theatre and unfurled it in onstage during the rehearsal of the 1895 pantomime. Augustus Harris was about to reject it when Phil May, the Beggarstaffs' enthusiastic supporter, appeared and congratulated Harris on his perspicacity in commissioning the poster. It was accepted.