Food Adulteration Its Control in 19th Century Britain

NOTES AND LITERATURE CITED

• F. A. Filby, A History of Food Adulteration and Analysis, Published D. Phil. Thesis, University of London (1934).
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• See Ref. 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’.
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• T. C, Barker, J, C. McKensie and J. Yudkin, Our Changing Fare, p. 37. Macgibbon and Kee, London (1966).
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• J. Burnett, 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 Unpublished D. Phil.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).
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• 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.
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• J. Burnett, Plenty and Want, p. 112. Scalar Press, London (1979).
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• See Ref. 4. Parts of this thesis are summarized in Plenty and Want (1966 and 1979).
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• See Ref. 6, p. 115.
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• See Ref. 1, p. 18.
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• Lancet I, 485–487 (8 January 1831).
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• Lancet II, 193–198 (14 May 1831).
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• Lancet II, 111–114 (1855).
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• A. H. Hassall, Food and its Adulterations, Longman Brown Green and Longmans, London (1855).
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• Public Health 88–89 (1868).
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• R. J. Lambert, Sir John Simon, 1816–1904, p. 243. Macgibbon and Kee, London (1963).
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• 1856, Third Report, p. iii.
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• Lancet II, 504–505 (1858 ). See cartoon in Punch 20 November 1868.
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• 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.
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• Dublin and Gloucestershire.
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• R. J. Lambert, Central and Local Relations in Mid-Victorian England: the Local Government Act Office, 1858–1871. Victorian Studies 6, 125 (1962–1963).
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• Lancet I, 276 (1864).
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• For example Anti-Adulteration Review, Food Journal, Food, Water and Air, Milk Journal and Public Health.
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• Anti-Adulteration Review 86 (April 1872).
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• Anti-Adulteration Review 42 (January 1872).
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• 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.
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• Hansard 3rd Ser. 194, 726–727; 201, 1507.
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• Hansard 3rd Ser. 201, 1510–1513.
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• 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 from 1876 to 1882.
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• The Courts of Quarter Sessions.
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• Analyst 84–85 (1881).
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• Annual Report of the Local Government Board, Parl. Pp. 1886, XXXI, cvi.
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• Ibid. Parl. Pp. 1890 –1891, XXXIII, cl.
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• Parl. Pp. 1874, VI, 243 et seq. Lancet II, 132 (1874).
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• Chemist and Druggist 236 (1874).
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• 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.
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• 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.
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• Lancet II, 143–145 (1861 ).
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• First Report, Qs. 1660–1617 (1855) evidence of T. Slack-well.
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• Ref. 38, Qs. 21–23.
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• Food Journal (September 1870 -June 1871).
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