A Visitor's Guide to Victorian England by Michelle Higgs

Author:Michelle Higgs
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: HISTORY / Military / World War II
ISBN: 9781473834460
Publisher: Pen & Sword Books
Published: 2014-02-11T16:00:00+00:00

THE DAILY GROCERY SHOP

Without refrigeration or freezers, perishable foodstuffs like milk, butter, eggs and meat cannot be kept fresh for very long. Large country houses have their own ice houses and the rich have lead-lined ice-boxes in their town-house cellars, but the humble middle-class working man has only a cool larder to keep his food in. Although refrigerators are exhibited at the Great Exhibition in 1851, they are large and cumbersome, and not suitable for home use. Not until the twentieth century will the ordinary family have access to refrigeration.

As a result, shopping for food has to be done at least every couple of days, if not every day. The average middle-class consumer shops at a bakery for bread, a butcher’s for meat, a grocer’s for dry goods such as sugar, tea, coffee and rice, and dairy shops for milk, butter, eggs, cream and cheese. Early shops have wooden countertops and floors, which are difficult to keep free of dirt. In the late nineteenth century, the importance of food hygiene is taken more seriously, and marble counters and tiled walls are introduced which are far easier to clean. In Victorian food shops, people buy smaller quantities of foodstuffs and simply ask for the weight they require. This is measured out and wrapped in paper by the smartly-dressed shop staff. Liquids are often measured into the customers’ own jugs, especially in working-class districts.

From about the 1870s, cheap imports of meat, fish and fruit from overseas lead to an improvement in diet for those who can afford it, but do not affect the working and lower working classes. Many of them have to shop for food at the end of the day, when the leftovers are marked down in price. The diet of the wealthy is the most varied and might include exotic fruits such as peaches, pineapples and grapes as well as shellfish, meat, poultry and game.

To be successful, tradesmen have to offer a wide range of goods and services. In 1873, William Benson advertises his business in Malvern Wells as ‘Confectioner, Fancy Bread & Biscuit Baker and Dealer in British Wines’. He can provide ‘Rich Wedding and other Cakes on the shortest notice’ and supplies families with ‘genuine home-made bread daily’. Yet, this is not the sum total of William Benson’s services. He also describes himself as ‘Corn Factor and Provision Merchant’, ‘Agent for the General Fire and Life Insurance Office’ and ‘Family Grocer, Tea Dealer and Italian Warehouseman’. William Benson also offers home-cured hams and bacon, and Huntley and Palmer’s biscuits, and could secure apartments for families ‘on the shortest notice’.

When John James Sainsbury advertised his ‘High Class’ provisions store at Croydon in 1894, he described some of his other outlets and the types of goods for sale:

‘The shops are well lighted, and elegantly fitted with mahogany, the walls being lined with tesselated [sic] tiles, while marble slabs and counters give to the whole an inviting air of coolness and cleanliness at the hottest season. The [stock] is of

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