Friday 14th October 1938 saw Spalding Cattle Market opened with great fanfare by Sir John Chancellor, chairman of the Livestock Commission. The following Tuesday saw the first market held at the new premises in Swan Street with equal pomp and ceremony.
The first beast sold in Spalding’s new livestock market was an animal owned by Councillor C.A.Banks and was auctioned off by Tom White. “After the beast had been bought, a small bottle of champagne was broken and the contents poured over its head. Then a toast was drunk to the success of the new market with a crowded sales ring joining whole-heartedly in the expression of this sentiment.”[i]
The first pig sold in Spalding auction was given by Bert Elsom and auctioned off by Councillor J.H. Longstaff with the proceeds of the sale donated to the Johnson hospital in Spalding.
The first lamb sold by Sam Kingston for Master Bennett the son of Mr. W. Bennett of Winsover Road – a family butchers that survives to this day in Winsover Road and is the only family butcher in Spalding to remain in unbroken family chain of ownership in the locality for over a hundred years. The purchaser of this lamb was Mr. George Adams . This first sale was fairly modest selling 47 fat beast, 20 store beast, 26 sheep, 421 fat pigs, 246 store pigs and 111 dozen poultry.
Within days the old sheep pens in the Sheep Market were removed and a car park created on this site.
The opening of Spalding market was done at the same time as local people were being asked to get measured for gas masks in preparation for War. As War was declared in September 1939 the government had already been preparing for control of food supply and distribution with lessons learned from 1918. Very quickly the Ministry of Food imposed control of all fat stock fit for sale for human consumption and purchased these at collecting centres. Spalding market, with its modern facilities close to the railway was one of the chosen collecting centres. Fat stock was not auctioned, but bought at a controlled price, slaughtered at Ministry appointed slaughter-houses and distributed to the retail trade via the services of existing meat wholesalers. Store stock[ii] and dairy cattle were not affected by these constraints and could be sold at auction. However, the Ministry price of fat-stock effectively provided a cap to the value of stores.
The Ministry of Food tried wherever possible to not disrupt the value, mechanisms and existing arrangements for the rearing, sale and distribution of livestock. In principle it was a pragmatic approach, but heralded a significant change in meat production that has impact to this day.
The supply of meat in most rural villages and towns relied upon locally sourced meat from local farmers or markets often slaughtered in the butcher’s own slaughterhouse, or failing that a local abattoir up to 1939. This was certainly true in Spalding and the whole of South Lincolnshire in both the market towns and many of the villages. In addition to this was on farm slaughtering where the local butcher or slaughterman would do the rounds, or farms and smallholders would do it themselves.
All this meant that people were closer to their food supply and on the whole were less squeamish about where it came from. It is hard to imagine children having the same enjoyment watching the butcher as those in this anonymous rhyme from 1927:
Children coming home from school
Pause at the local abattoir.
They love to hear the porkers squeal,
And hear the bullocks roar,
To see the butcher slip then flop
Full length upon the floor.
From the late nineteenth as town commissioners throughout the country were striving to improve sanitation, health, hygiene and the basic utilities in every town the activities of the meat trade were coming under scrutiny. It was not just public health that was an issue, but throughout the nineteenth century we saw a greater sensibility towards animals that saw the first animal cruelty legislation “An Act to prevent the cruel and improper treatment of Cattle” as early as 1822 known as The Martins Act as it was proposed by the MP Richard Martin. Further legislation followed. 1824 saw the formation of the RSPCA by Richard Martin and his friend William Wilberforce along with other concerned people. One of the founding principles of this charity still in place today was the robust enforcement of animal welfare legislation. Bulls were excluded from the initial act enabling bull-baiting and bull-fighting to be within the law up to 1835, and the last bull fight in Britain was broken up by the police and RSPCA in 1870. There was a greater sensibility towards animals that grew in the Victorian age. Even in the rural press around Spalding and the fens you see outcry about cruelty to livestock and animals. By 1900 the South Lincolnshire branch of the RSPCA was very active with it having 34 prosecutions in South Lincolnshire alone in 1902 and 10 of those were in Bourne. Butchers and slaughtermen featured regularly in prosecutions.
In 1902 at the regional AGM at Grantham the society made the following declaration: “ The society is advocating public slaughterhouses to ensure skilful killing, advises the use of Greener’s patent cattle and pig killer. This is in use in all our large towns, and its suggested a demonstration be given here to show its use.”
This was a popular approach across all parties, but was highly unpopular with the rural community who felt they were being undermined in their ability to rear, slaughter and butcher as they wish. The Greener’s patent cattle killer was a one shot gun that took a cartridge – the muzzle had a solid bell shape to it and you place it against the skull of the animal to fire a slug through its brain stem. It is quick and efficient in competent hands.
As we entered the twentieth century the movement against killing by local butchers was commercially strong by the meat wholesalers who operated at a different scale. Whilst butchers hoped they would be able to buy their cattle on the hoof and kill in their own slaughterhouses the “whole trades” or wholesalers hoped the opposite and they tended to have more influence. The following quote from Mr. Thompson, a farmer and member of the Co-operative Society in Grantham in 1902 sums up the conflict:
“Mr. Thompson said the Co-operative Society’s policy was to have nothing to do with wholesalers, but to kill in their own abattoirs. If these societies would not be tied to wholesalers, why should members of the trade be tied to them? Speaking as a member of the Farmers Union, he could say that not one member of his branch was in favour of centralised slaughtering.”[iii]
The fear was that meat wholesalers would dump meat in from abroad and hawk it around the country at any price. Today’s farmers in 2023 understand this.
The tide was turning against the local butcher with his own slaughterhouse and was not helped by those in the industry that were poor at their job in either welfare, health or hygiene issues. The townsfolk of the twentieth century were not prepared to tolerate the smell, noise and blood running onto the streets and into open sewers. Perhaps in my life time sensibilities have gone too far the other way as people that have houses built close to established abattoir sites are only too keen to complain of smells and noise even if it was there first. Certainly I have seen this several times in Spalding despite it being a food producing town.
World War 2 accelerated a chain of events that was to transform local meat supply with a drastic reduction of slaughterhouses as the supply of meat was controlled through the Ministry of Food using their designated slaughterhouses. The one designated in Spalding was in Mill Lane.
In 1939 the number of slaughterhouses in Britain was 16,000. By 1950 there were only 580 in use. By 2018 in England alone there were only 228 slaughterhouses. Ministry slaughterhouses in the Fens of South Lincolnshire were of very poor quality and were generally badly run and not maintained. After the War the Ministry slaughterhouse in Bourne was in such poor state that the local Medical Officer decreed he would not allow any visitor from abroad to see such conditions that he regarded as a national embarrassment. The Ministry abattoir in Mill Green, Spalding was in similarly poor condition in 1952 but the local authority secured funds from the Ministry of Food for its repair. Meat came off ration in 1954 and local abattoirs could be sanctioned to open or reopen after much dithering. The preference in the post-War Labour government was to see abattoirs centralised and only permitted in towns with populations of 50,000 or more – for Spalding this would have meant the nearest abattoir would be in Nottingham. There was not the funds to enable this and each local authority was left to sort its own provision of abattoirs and slaughterhouses in 1954.
The problem was twofold in some areas – many butchers had not mothballed their slaughterhouses, and some were not fit for purpose. Added to this a generation of expertise had been lost in the fifteen year period and in this post-war period too few slaughterhouses existed for young men to learn the trade. Spalding was lucky in that local butchers had retained their expertise and re-established their slaughter houses in the post war period. This helped the livestock trade to rejuvenate and delayed the decline that would happen throughout the post War period and accelerate in the 1970’s as smallholders, livestock farmers and mixed farms all gave way to more lucrative arable farming and farm work.
Every few years new and greater regulation of meat production would mean that the cost of staying within regulation favoured larger operations and economies of scale especially in meat and food processing and packing. Spalding benefitted in that by 1964 George Adams had expanded to warrant investment in a large slaughterhouse in Fulney Lane. 1978 saw a similar investment by King Bros. in Holbeach able to handle 200 pigs or 80 sheep or cattle every hour. Spalding also benefitted from large facilities established by Hargeaves (Wholesale Pork) Ltd and in more recent times Woodheads slaughterhouse.
All these were significant as they helped retain a livestock market in Spalding as they did source some animals from this local market to suit their needs and ensure full utilisation of their facilities. However, how livestock was being marketed changed.
In addition to cattle, poultry and pigs Spalding also saw Turkeys killed and processed at Turners Turkeys factory in Clay Lake. Turkey lorries would thunder past my parent’s house at night loaded with Turkeys in layers brought from rearing sheds near and far. The turkey cages on the lorries were stacked on top of each other with the shit running down from the top ones to the poor creatures at the bottom. Every so often a door would fly off the cage and a bedraggled turkey would drop out alive, to be found by our early bird neighbour the next morning as he went to work. He always phoned the factory up. I suggested to him that he phone and ask them to swap it for a dead dressed turkey otherwise he could call the RSPCA. He was not sure that he could fancy them to eat. Centralisation of food supply does not necessarily improve welfare and quality as had been hoped by the RSPCA in 1902.
Increasingly poultry, pigs and cattle were being reared under contracts for a wholesale market or producer. This saw smaller producers either excluded or having to adapt. It is to Spalding market’s credit that it continued to supply livestock to national producers, the local large abattoirs and the few remaining butchers with their own slaughterhouses. However, the simple fact is that farming throughout the twentieth century increasingly changed from providing produce and livestock to a market of providing processors of their produce and livestock as ingredients of a food industry that was ever increasing in scale. Food was a growing industry and membership of the European Economic Community accelerated its growth as this Industry was favoured over others. Indeed the Common Agricultural Policy represented a huge transfer of capital investment from manufacturing and engineering to food production. This favoured largeness of production methods. Almost every food factory from the late 1970’s onwards benefitted from European funding and almost every farmer received payments that fuelled growth of production.
Spalding hung onto its local livestock market and meat supply much longer than many towns in the area. The larger towns of Boston and Peterborough closed their livestock markets before Spalding. Indeed, the closure of Boston market in 1973 gave Spalding livestock market a boost, but in reality it was a larger portion of an ever shrinking pie.
The livestock market and Tuesday market day continued to have a significant impact on the activity and footfall in Spalding town centre that had a huge benefit for businesses in the town. Tuesday market day was always busier in my father’s electrical shop in New Road with customers calling in from the surrounding villages and towns. My mother would go to the hairdresser on a Tuesday leaving a pre-school me in the care of my father or grand-father at their shop. If they had time, as a treat, I would be taken around the corner to the cattle market to see the animals. I found it fascinating, and as I got older I ventured into the market when not at school to witness the theatre of the auctions and see, smell and touch the livestock.
When I was younger all types of livestock would pass through the market on the same day, squealing pigs, cattle and the smell of steam rising off the sheep. In later times pigs were sold on a separate day to aid compliance with veterinary regulations.
At one end of the market was a covered area where live rabbits and poultry were auctioned off. As a young child in the 1970’s there would be quite a few of several different and interesting varieties, but by the 1980’s this part of the market was ill used and run down with the cages in poor state not worthy of repair or renewal.
The livestock markets were full of characters with the auctioneer, often Christopher Longstaff, John Allen or Simon Kingston acting as ringmasters supported by stewards such as Roy Cole who would enjoy banter with the crowd of locals.
Roy Cole was a brilliant person that I had the pleasure to shoot with for several years. He reared cattle near Saracens Head and was highly regarded for his ability and knowledge. Once when I was down there aged about 12 a sow broke loose from the pen and I stood at the entrance to the stalls watching this huge pig charge towards me. Roy shouted at me to close the gate which I did just in time to prevent its egress from the stalls grabbing a nearby pig board and holding above the gate for I feared it might jump over. Perhaps not the safest environment for a young lad, but I was never questioned and always stayed out of the way, and most people knew me.
In the post-war period the livestock market was run by four auctioneer firms: Tateson and Shearer, T A White, S & G Kingston, and R Longstaff and Co. AS we entered the 1970’s these businesses changed and the auction was operated by White and Kingston, and R Longstaff and Co. I firmly believe that the relative longevity of the Spalding market was down to the personality and hard work of key people within these firms. 1973 saw the formation of a livestock society that gave farmers the ability to showcase their livestock and promoted quality. But agriculture was changing as was butchery. Increasingly we saw local butchers close their slaughterhouses, instead often relying on abattoirs further away in Boston. Indeed, to my knowledge A Wright & Son in Boston is the only family run abattoir and butcher remaining in the Lincolnshire Fens in 2023.
1987 saw R Longstaff & Co as the last auctioneer operating the market. Despite working hard to retain viability it was effectively being subsidised by the local rate-payer, allegedly in 1991 to the amount of £27,000 a year. It was the Government’s Intervention Board for Agricultural Produce that signed the death nell for Spalding livestock market along with many other markets.
The Intervention Board is a UK organisation used to regulate the market for the purpose of enforcement of European Community market policy under section 6 of the European Communities Act 1972. With respect to cattle in the 1970’s they dealt with the problem of over-production of dairy produce by paying dairy farmers to switch to beef fatstock rearing. Those of my age or older may recall the EEC butter mountain and butter being given away to pensioners. Part of this process developed a premium system that would pay a premium to the farmer that had fattened the cattle for market. This was tweaked over time to promote quality and was embodied in the Beef Special Premium Order that was passed by Parliament to come into force in April 1989. To receive the premium cattle had to be sold to either a registered purchaser or sold through a certified market. In December 1991 the Intervention Board gave notice that Spalding Livestock Market was to lose its premium certification for beef fat-stock. This was objected to, but only five weeks’ notice was given. No beef producer could afford to lose the premium, this would mean that Spalding livestock market would lose a whole class of livestock, namely beef fat stock. With the loss of this the viability of the market as a whole was sabotaged.
The late David Creasey, a farmer from Hanthorpe, summed up the issue: “ The effect of removing the certification of steers from many small cattle markets and slaughter houses all over the country will inevitably mean the death of these markets, not only for steers but for heifers, sheep and pigs as well. For the Intervention Board to say the smaller centres account for only four per cent of the animals presented ignores the fact that these centres also deal with considerable other classes of livestock. It seems to me that the proposed action of the Intervention Board with only five weeks’ notice will remove this valuable facility from the agricultural scene of South Lincolnshire. No beef producer can afford to lose the headage payment, no livestock market can exist unless it can sell all classes of stock.”[iv]
Once again the centralised needs and regulations were seen to ride rough shod over local priorities. But, the reality is that the actions of the Intervention Board possibly merely accelerated a process that was happening anyway. Like it or not our food production systems throughout the twentieth century moved in favour of largeness and centralised processing and whilst this worked against Spalding town centre as a market town it worked in favour of the area and its development as an industrial town, albeit that industry being food.
I attended one of the last livestock dinners at Springfields by accident in 1991. Last minute some guests had dropped out so David Watts, a manager at Barclays Bank invited myself and some colleagues to take their seats last minute. There was a subsequent fat stock show, but the livestock society folded and its trophies are held in Spalding Gentleman’s Society museum.
It was not just the town that would be affected by the closure of the livestock market. Virtually overnight smallholders and smaller livestock farmers lost their local market. The viability of taking smaller numbers of livestock to Louth, Thrapston or Melton Mowbray markets meant that many more ceased to continue rearing livestock. The business favoured largeness and a certain economy of scale. It did, however, see an increase in livestock traders who would buy livestock to resell quite quickly at the larger markets such as Carlisle.
The closure of the livestock market in Spalding had a significant impact on the town. Tuesday market day was a habit by many that ensured they visited this town during the week. It was not just the livestock market that was effected, but the shops, market stalls and trades people that benefitted from the increased foot fall the market created. Pubs were permitted an extra hour on the lunch time opening hours on market day. It was a meeting place where gossip, deals and transactions would take place. It was a pull into the town from the surrounding villages and towns. Future generations would not have the habit of going up town on a market day. Banks, estate agents, solicitors, accountants, clothes shops, shoe shops and even my father’s electrical shop were all busier on market day. However, it was not just the livestock market that was lost to the town centre, for with it went the bulb and produce auction. Together they both provided for the social and commercial sustainability of the town centre.
The importance of the Bulb and Produce Auction cannot be under-stated in that by 1947 the bulb market was the largest in the country. It is to the credit of Longstaffs that they have been able to adapt and continue the market and auction and successfully relocate it to the out of town site at Enterprise Way located between Spalding and Pinchbeck. It is still Britain’s largest horticultural auction and continued to function in the covid pandemic. It sells horticultural supplies, seasonal bulbs, seed potatoes and onion sets, florist supplies, plants and fruit and vegetables. Whilst possible a small part of the market the fruit and vegetable market offers a useful outlet for the nearby food and fruit processors to get rid of surplus, as well as providing a market for smaller producers. It is attended by a combination of local traders and those from away including restaurants, shops and market traders.
[i] The Mercury and Guardian 21st October 1938
[ii] Store stock is sold on for someone else to fatten
[iii] Grantham Journal 1902
[iv] David Creasey was in 1991 NFU Holland County Branch chairman. He was ordained and I was fortunate enough to work with him supporting farmers in Lincolnshire Rural Support Network. Upon his death he set up a fund to support Lincolnshire Agricultural Chaplaincy a key part of pastoral support for farmers and the rural community in the county of Lincolnshire.
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