Report on the milk supply of Finsbury, 1903 : a special report ordered to be printed by the Public Health Committee / by George Newman.

  • Finsbury (London, England). Public Health Committee.
Date:
1903
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Report on the milk supply of Finsbury, 1903 : a special report ordered to be printed by the Public Health Committee / by George Newman. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

    11/84 (page 7)
    The country sources, as will be seen from the attached map, show a characteristic distribution. Much of the milk is derived from the great milk-producing counties of Derbyshire, Staffordshire, Leices- tershire, Warwickshire, and Wiltshire, and very little appears to come from the home counties. To furnish some idea of distance I have marked on the map straight measurements from London for 25, 50, 100, and 150 miles. Of course, actually the distances by rail from London are much greater. But even this rough and ready method gives an approximate idea of the great distances which Finsbury milk travels before it reaches the milkshop. On the map 280 towns and villages are marked. The distances of these places, in straight measurement, are as follows:— Within the 25 mile radius equal 2 ( 07 per cent.) „ 50 „ „ 13 ( 4-6 „ ) „ 100 „ „ 111(39-5 „ ) „ 150 „ „ 145(51-9 „ ) „ 200 „ „ 10 ( 3-5 „ ) It is evident that 95 per cent, of all the milk which comes into Finsbury from the country must of necessity spend several hours on the railway. From one cause or another this period of transit from farm to milk-shop averages 10 to 12 hours. An example will illustrate what actually happens. A certain contractor in Finsbury obtains his milk from a number of farms in the Derbyshire and Staffordshire district. He possesses a more or less correct list of the farms with which he deals, and a correct list of his milk agents through whom he does his business. He receives between 1,000 and 1,500 gallons of milk daily, and it is delivered in ordinary milk churns at Euston or St. Pancras Stations early in the morning. At R., in Staffordshire, he has an agent who obtains milk from some half dozen farms within three or four miles of R. railway station. Milking takes place between 4 and 6 p.m., and the milk is strained, and some of it cooled, and placed in churns and sent to R. railway station. The milk undergoes various vicissitudes on the railway (whose company does not provide refrigerator cars for its ordinary milk traffic), and eventually it arrives at Euston about three or four o’clock in the morning. The milk contractor (with his vans) meets the milk and distributes it, selecting so many churns for this van