First World War Britain by Peter Doyle

Author:Peter Doyle
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: First World War Britain: 1914–1919
ISBN: 9781782001218
Publisher: Osprey Publishing

Bread shortages were of real concern; so much so that the king was forced to make a proclamation asking the British people to eat less bread. This postcard tries to put a cheery message to it.

Bread was an important food reserve for much of the population – it was processed, already cooked and cheap. Attempts to increase the yield of wheat from British farms were reasonably successful, yet with the submarine threat to the supply of wheat from overseas, baking sufficient bread to meet demand was a challenging task. Appeals were made to ‘eat less bread’ to conserve stocks, with campaigns and propaganda to boot; this was easily asked for, but poorer families found this self-sacrifice a difficult task. In early May 1917 the king issued a royal proclamation: ‘We, being persuaded that the abstention from all unnecessary consumption of grain will furnish the surest and most effectual means of defeating the devices of Our enemies… We do for this purpose more particularly exhort and charge all heads of households to reduce the consumption of bread in their respective families by at least one-fourth…’ For some families, this was easier said than done.

The cost of bread became a major concern: an average price for a loaf was around 6d in 1914, by June 1917 it had risen to over 11d. In October 1917 the government felt it necessary to subsidise the humble loaf, fixing the price at 9d, a subsidy that was to cost the nation an estimated £40 million. Though bread was never subject to rationing, its texture was to suffer markedly. Substituting the wheat were a whole variety of suspect ingredients – from potato flour to chalk. These were intended to bulk up the mix, but instead managed to create a universally detested loaf that was ‘dark in colour, rough in texture and often unpleasant in flavour’. The other staple, the potato, was similarly in short supply. There was a serious shortage of the root vegetable in 1917, and this meant that the supply of seed potatoes was put at risk for 1918. To avert disaster the food controller distributed some 15,000 tons of seed potatoes, many of them to allotment holders. Under DORA, many unused land areas were commandeered and converted into allotments, thereby increasing the harvestable area of Britain to the extent that by the summer of 1918 there were 100,000 acres of allotments available for growing food in England and Wales. The seed potatoes came good, and large crops were raised that helped avert the feared shortage.

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