Devon Dairy School

Around the turn of the 20th Century and well into the Edwardian period of the first decade Devon supported a travelling Dairy School to provide education, mainly for girls, in the skills associated with producing dairy products. Devon Dairy school visited East Worlington and while it is impossible to confirm an exact date photographic evidence supports it presence in the Parish Hall. The dairy school visited Filleigh in 1907 as report by the Crediton Chronicle 6th April 1907.

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It’s May and, with Empire Day approaching, a very special boat comes to the Tamar Valley in Devon.

The paddle steamer, Monarch, is arriving: one of only 3 in the country that’s still operational. It’s the first time such a vessel has arrived at Morwellham Quay in 80 years

Back in the Edwardian period 1000s of tourists began coming to the Tamar Valley by paddle steamer every summer. The combination of reduced working hours and greater mobility encouraged a new form of tourism – day-tripping. Workers from towns and cities like Plymouth flocked to rural spots like Morwhellham Quay for festivities.

Boating at Morwellham Quay

Local farmers cashed in on the visitors – selling cream teas, fresh fruit, postcards and anything else they could think of – and also used the steamers to send their produce to market.

So Ruth, Alex and Peter pull out all the stops to put on a party for the tourists: they’ve got to milk a cow who has never been milked before; take lessons in traditional clotted cream making from the instructors at a ‘travelling dairy school’; and learn to make a special Devon accompaniment to cream teas – the highly popular ‘cut round’ (a Devonshire version of a scone).

On top of that, they must harvest their strawberries to get them to market on the paddle steamer.

They must also come up with more things to sell: drawings of the Tamar Valley, bouquets of flowers, and ice cream – not easy to make when you don’t have a freezer.

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USDA

Bulletin no. 17

Bureau of Animal Industry: Dairy Schools

https://naldc.nal.usda.gov/download/5421089/PDF

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Dairies and buying milk, early 20th century

Source: https://www.1900s.org.uk/1900s-dairies.htm

By the webmaster’s mother (1906-2002) based on her experiences as a child in north London

Before supermarkets, all shops were small and sold only one type of merchandise. Milk was bought either from the milkman who delivered every day, sometimes twice a day in hot weather, or from the shop which usually butted onto the milk yard which housed the milk carts and the horses. The shop was known as the dairy.

Typical Edwardian dairy shop front in north London in the early 1900s

Robert Hobbs dairy and confectioner shop in at No. 3 The Green in Lower Edmonton. Photo courtesy of Miranda Pender

Shopfront with shop assistants of an Englishe dairy in the early 20th century

Dairy owned by Lord Rayleigh, courtesy of Pauline and Alan Hawkes. The milk came from a farm at Hatfield Peveral.

Why dairies did such a good trade – the problem with milk in hot weather

When I was a child in the early 1900s milk was a big problem in hot weather as no-one had a fridge, and the milk was fresh, not sterilised or pasteurised to help it keep.

I would often be sent to the dairy with a jug in hand to get more milk because the milk that had been delivered by the milkman had gone off. It was quite difficult to carry back without spilling.

How to make the milk keep longer in vary hot weather

Very hot weather was usually humid which meant that the methods of cooling based on evaporation didn’t work. So my mother would scald the milk, i.e. heat it to near boiling point, to make it keep longer. The disadvantage was that the cream would rise to the top and create a skin. I loved this skin, but most people didn’t, and it took the substance and flavour out of the milk.

Always a local dairy

Our local dairy in Silver Street was typical of other dairies that I saw. It was a beautifully clean-looking place with white tiles on the walls, and a china vat on the counter with a bright measuring hanging on the side. The shop sold butter, biscuits and eggs as well as milk, and there were new-laid eggs and white china swans in the window. The milk was kept in milk churns in the yard at the back at the back of the dairy.

Dairy workers – family businesses

Dairies as family businesses

Dairies were often family businesses with sons and daughters helping with the milk rounds from a very early age, Reggie (whose diaries are on https://edmontonodyssey.blogspot.com) was expected to help with Hobbs milk round when he was not at school. There is a photo of Hobbs Dairy on this page.

After World War One broke out and the young men of the family were either away at the Front or in the Special Constabulary, my great-aunt Nancy had to do the round, while her mother and elder sister ran the shop. She was just 12 years old!

Miranda Pender