The railway opened up markets across the country and it is no accident that we see railway sidings close to many livestock markets in many towns as the market left the streets and occupied their own premises.
There are a great many misunderstandings about this era with assumptions that without supermarkets supply chains were primarily local with just larger towns and cities requiring a larger supply primarily from within the British Isles. This is simply romanticised rubbish. Many market towns did fulfil the supply of food locally, in Spalding this was the case with butchers refusing to stock cheaper chilled and frozen meat well into the twentieth century. Spalding and its catchment was of a size that at this stage it served its own needs first and the larger needs of supplying the country with food second. This was especially true of meat and was to have a significant consequence as we entered shortages towards the end of 1918. I will explain this as follows in relation to both local, national and international markets of the time.
The mantras of “local food for local people”, and “shop local” and even “buy British” are popular messages in the twenty-first century that has seen a dominance of food supply and shopping by large institutions and shops. But, there is also an element of nostalgia, harkening back to “good old days “of seasonal eating and good quality food bought and sold locally. I often feel that nostalgia is “wishing for what never was”. Whilst I prefer many of these nostalgic elements to today I do not view them through rose-coloured glasses. As a market town like Spalding grew how it fulfilled local and national markets changed. This is best seen in the livestock and meat and dairy markets.
Spalding’s livestock market provided a market for farmers and small-holders to sell livestock. It also provided the main source of meat for its population and its catchment area. In addition it provided a market for selling livestock nationally to supply meat primarily for the industrial towns and cities of the Midlands and London. However, up to the First World War its market preferred the local supply of meat to be supplied for consumption in Spalding and the surrounding area. This was particularly true of cattle and pigs and to a lesser extent sheep who formed part of a stratified market as described earlier in this book. This was, in my opinion, due to the higher level of population of Spalding and the surrounding parishes as well as the level of transient people whether seasonal workers, or sailors and crew, and traders. In contrast you see the livestock markets of Bourne and Holbeach courting and maintaining sales to a greater number of outside buyers mainly into the Midlands. Longstaff’s, one of the most significant auctioneers of the town with origins in the eighteenth century, marketed livestock in auctions at Bourne and Stamford significantly to other regions. The Spalding market of the late nineteenth century did not have the same need. It also has to be noted that agriculture in the heart of the Fens was reducing its volume of livestock in that era, whereas Holbeach benefitted from the marsh grazing and Bourne and Stamford captured the graziers of higher ground. My point being that Spalding livestock market served the local meat market first and foremost.
We need to put this in a national and international context. The City of London was consuming more meat in the 18th century as its population grew and the amount of meat consumed per head also increased.
“It is an account of the sales in Smithfield Market from the year 1732 to 1794.
Years Cattle Sheep
1732 76,210 514,700
1794 109,064 717,990
It is to be observed also that the size and weight both of cattle and sheep, have probably increased at least one fourth since 1732; according to which rate the consumption of meat per pound has augmented, besides the addition in point of number.
Consequently the increase in 62 years amounts to the enormous number of 32,854 head of cattle, and 203,290 sheep for the Metropolis alone.
The Average Weight of Oxen killed for the London market AD 1700 is 370lbs , of calves 50lbs, of sheep 28lbs. Now , 1812, the Oxen weigh 800lbs, the calves 140lbs, the sheep 80lbs and lambs generally about 50lbs.
From January 4th to December 30th 1808, there were sold at Smithfield beasts 152,660 , sheep and lambs 1,045,210 , calves 17.750 , pigs 34,110.”[i]
This was before the railway widened the market and the growth of industry in the towns and cities. We were starting to rely upon imports from Europe as and when conflict with Europe permitted and this requirement grew throughout the eighteenth century. We came to rely upon grain imports and then meat. In the last quarter of the nineteenth century we saw chilled frozen and tinned meats. 1879 saw frozen beef and lamb imported from Australia exceeding chilled and tinned meats from America, Argentina, New Zealand and Holland.
“According to returns issued in 1908, four tons out of every five which pass through the London Central Meat Markets, in order to supply the 600,000 consumers in London are of foreign origin. That is to say the meat-produce derived from the United Kingdom, and which passes through Smithfield Market, amounts to only 20 ½ % of the total.”[ii]
An unmodernised British Agriculture could not produce food at a scale to feed its cities. Farmers could not supply enough for markets and market towns could not feed enough into the cities. The economies of scale and mechanisation in America and Canada, and the large scale low cost peasant powered farms of Russia had previously made the British farmer uncompetitive on price of grain, the same was now happening with meat. Although price was not the only driver, despite being cheaper frozen beef and lamb was less popular due to its taste than chilled meat and the Australian and New Zealand importers increased supply of chilled and reduced frozen meat supply in order to enjoy better prices at less cost.
The Admiralty were highly aware of the vulnerability of the British food supply as early as 1908 and repeatedly warned the government of how vulnerable British food security could be. The citizens of Spalding, with a secure local supply, would have low regard for this. Local market towns still sold local meat. Indeed tinned meat was revered in the town as a novelty or even a luxury. The earliest reference to tinned meat I can find is American Libby’s Corned Beef sold in tins in Hallam and Blackbourn’s shop in the Market Place, Spalding in 1892.
The bizarre thing is that throughout all these arguments about protecting Agriculture and Food supply we see a swinging process of either the consumer or the farmer being protected, but not both. The Corn Laws from 1815 inflated prices so that people in cities could not afford bread as we see in the Peterloo protest and subsequent atrocity of 1819. When protections are removed after 1845 a short period of boom is felt in agriculture with the consumer not benefitting for a few years. Then as we get to the 1870’s we see the consumer’s lot improved by low cost imports to the detriment of farmers. The First World War saw improvement in farm incomes as consumers in cities went short as the U Boat campaign hit food supply from 1917 onwards. The issue with food supply is not just having enough, but that it is affordable too whilst at the same time being viable for the farmer to produce. I believe since the eighteenth century we have only seen this balance achieved briefly in two periods of our history, the 1850’s and the 1960’s.
1902 saw a substantial pressure group forming for food security of Britain to be brought to the fore with Lord Randolf being one of leading spokesmen for the cause. It was felt that mines were the highest risk followed by conventional attack on merchant shipping and pre-War exercises reflected this without acknowledging the growing risk posed by the new technology of submarines. The First World War saw the fears come to a head.
Well before the War had started the Admiralty had secured large quantities of frozen and tinned meat and undertaken contracts to supply with Australian, New Zealand, Argentinian and Dutch producers. This helped. But 1917 saw the effects of the U Boat blockade of British supply routes taking effect. Initially calls were made for people to voluntarily with the Ministry of Food and National War Savings Committee appealing to the public.
“The German’s are trying to starve us
Four-fifths of our Wheat, One -third of our Meat and All our Sugar Come over-sea
German submarines are reducing these supplies
Therefore we must EAT LESS to maintain the stocks we have. Our men at the Front who are fighting for us must have full rations.
It is for you to economise at home
And help to defeat the Germans, who boast that we shall give in if we do not get our usual supplies of food.
The People are put on their honour
TO ADOPT THE VOLUNTARY RATION, and thus prevent the necessity for compulsory rationing by food tickets.
No honourable man or woman can refuse the appeal
THINK OF THE SACRIFICES our gallant boys are making for us. You will never refuse to make so slight a sacrifice for them, will you?”
This appeal did not work, in particular because the effects of shortages were not felt evenly across the population, with rural areas seeing few shortages and urban ones seeing great deprivations especially as prices were rising to a greater extent in areas where there were shortages. In December 1917 the government introduced compulsory rationing of meat, butter and milk controlled by a combination of national actions and local administration.
The actions taken were sudden and severe and for the first time rural market towns like Spalding saw a reversal of fortune as the ability for the local meat market to serve local needs first was removed resulting in the following headline:
“FROZEN MEAT THIS WEEK
No Fresh Beef in the Spalding District.
There were only a few fat cattle in Spalding Market on Tuesday, and the Admiralty took them all. None will be killed in Spalding and district this week, and butchers will sell frozen meat instead. There were not quite sufficient sheep to give the butchers one each, so that there will be little fresh mutton. One Spalding butcher has declined to sell frozen meat, so that his customers will apparently be on very short rations. The butchers protest against taking all the meat from a producing area and importing the frozen variety.”[iii]
This was just the beginning as it got worse as by 7th June 1918 Spalding market effectively failed as a source of local meat supply. The butchers protested. It has to be remembered that a lack of local supply resulted in a total lack of offal products that provided a combination of cheap meals and ingredients for added value products. The local supply of meat was intercepted and redirected and the local butchers continued to protest.
These shortages and interception of local supply continued through to the end of the War, but even then the supply was low and below local requirements. The following report is from the Spalding Guardian in July 1918:
“There was a shortage of sheep in the market on Tuesday – only 91, which all went to the Spalding and district butchers, whose rationed requirements are 200, and only got 107 last week. A little more beef was allowed to redress the balance, but a greater proportion of frozen meat will have to be taken this week. There were 118 fat cattle, of which the local butchers got 31, London getting 66, and the Admiralty 21.”[iv]
In my view there is a clear lesson here that when national supply and local supply conflict the local supply will eventually lose out. The countryside and the town serve the city. In a similar way you see the dominance of national supply chains in modern day Spalding dissolving local supply, such as the livestock market and local butchers are greatly reduced. However, for some, the internet has changed the market in their favour as they are now able to sell locally produced meat into a national market via online ordering, albeit at a premium price.
Recovery of Wartime shortages in Spalding was fairly quick with a good recovery and restoration of supply from April 1919 onwards.
[i] Rural Sports The Revd WB Daniel 1813
[ii] Stephen’s Book of the Farm 5th edition 1908
[iii] Free Press Dec 1917
[iv] Spalding Guardian 26th July 1918
note these sections on the markets are written as a whole and I recommend reading posts before and after for full context.
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