Towards the middle of the 19th century, the adulteration of food, often with harmful and even poisonous ingredients, became a serious problem in Britain. Agitation against it began in the early 1850s, when The Lancet commissioned analyses of samples of food and published their result. Eventually this led to the Adulteration of Food and Drinks Act of 1860, a complete failure. Public Analysts, who could test samples of food collected by inspectors, followed in 1872 but many local authorities failed to collect samples. When grocers began to be prosecuted for adulteration, their representatives started to organize and they persuaded a new Government to repeal the offending laws. Finally the Society of Public Analysts and others caused the Sale of Food and Drug Act, 1875, to be passed which proved to be a lasting and valuable measure.
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References
1.
FilbyF. A., A History of Food Adulteration and Analysis, Published D. Phil. Thesis, University of London (1934).
2.
RefSee. 1, pp. 79–100, He performed experiments by baking bread with the adulterants the bakers were accused of using. The resulting ‘bread’ was quite unsaleable, being a ‘dark yellow paste’ encased in ‘a shell of hard cement’.
3.
BarkerT. C, McKensieJ, C. and YudkinJ., Our Changing Fare, p. 37. Macgibbon and Kee, London (1966).
4.
BurnettJ., The History of Food Adulteration in Great Britain in the Nineteenth Century, with special reference to Bread, Tea and Beer. Unpublished D. Phil. Thesis, University of London, p. 19 (1958).
5.
See for example Select Committee on the Adulteration of Food, Drink and Drugs. First Report, Parl. Pp. 1854–1855, VIII, 223; Second Report, Ibid., 375; Third Report, Parl. Pp. 1856, VIII, 3. Referred to as 1855, First Report, etc. First Report Qs. 21–23, 997, Third Report Qs. 2112–2133. Report on Provisions etc. for the Metropolitan Workhouses, Parl. Pp. 1872, LI. 599 et seq.
6.
BurnettJ., Plenty and Want, p. 112. Scalar Press, London (1979).
7.
RefSee. 4. Parts of this thesis are summarized in Plenty and Want (1966and 1979).
8.
RefSee. 6, p. 115.
9.
RefSee. 1, p. 18.
10.
LancetI, 485–487(8 January1831).
11.
LancetII, 193–198(14 May1831).
12.
LancetII, 111–114 (1855).
13.
HassallA. H., Food and its Adulterations, LongmanBrown Green and Longmans, London (1855).
14.
Public Health88–89 (1868).
15.
LambertR. J., Sir John Simon, 1816–1904, p. 243. Macgibbon and Kee, London (1963).
16.
1856, Third Report, p. iii.
17.
LancetII, 504–505 (1858). See cartoon in Punch 20 November 1868.
18.
Authorities which appointed Analysts under the 1860 Act include the City of London, Birmingham, Bolton, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Dublin, Gloucestershire, Worcestershire, Lincolnshire, Denbighshire, the metropolitan parishes of St George's Hanover Square, Islington, St Luke's Chelsea, St James and St John Clerkenwell, and perhaps also Sheffield, York, Wolverhampton and Nottingham.
19.
Dublin and Gloucestershire.
20.
LambertR. J., Central and Local Relations in Mid-Victorian England: the Local Government Act Office, 1858–1871. Victorian Studies6, 125 (1962–1963).
21.
LancetI, 276 (1864).
22.
For example Anti-Adulteration Review, Food Journal, Food, Water and Air, Milk Journal and Public Health.
23.
Anti-Adulteration Review86 (April1872).
24.
Anti-Adulteration Review42 (January1872).
25.
Commissioners of Sewers Printed Reports 1840–1898, 65/4 and 65/9 (City of London Record Office). Hansard 3rd Ser. 206, 969, 1262, 1434: 207, 1000.
26.
Hansard3rd Ser. 194, 726–727; 201, 1507.
27.
Hansard3rd Ser. 201, 1510–1513.
28.
Evidence about the enforcement of the Adulteration Acts comes from several sources, the most useful of which are the Annual Reports of the Local Government Board, the Analyst and the Anti-Adulteration Review. The Society of Public Analysts asked its members to make annual returns of their work and it published them in the Analyst from1876to 1882.
29.
The Courts of Quarter Sessions.
30.
Analyst84–85 (1881).
31.
Annual Report of the Local Government Board, Parl. Pp. 1886, XXXI, cvi.
32.
Ibid. Parl. Pp. 1890–1891, XXXIII, cl.
33.
Parl. Pp. 1874, VI, 243 et seq. Lancet II, 132 (1874).
34.
Chemist and Druggist236 (1874).
35.
Report cited in Ref. 33, p. iii. In fact the penalties were usually light. Most were £1 or less and only in one case had the maximum fine of £20 been inflicted. Ibid Appendix 8.
36.
Statistical information about adulteration is found in the Annual Reports of the Local Government Board from 1877 on. Before then, the evidence comes from private samples taken by analysts, especially Hassall from 1851–1854 and subsequently, and from evidence given to Parliamentary Committees.
37.
LancetII, 143–145 (1861).
38.
ReportFirst, Qs. 1660–1617 (1855) evidence of T. Slack-well.
