Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of illustrations
- Preface
- Abbreviations
- 1 Plain fare: diet during industrialization
- 2 Food supply, shops and food safety, 1890 to 1914
- 3 Nutrition, environment and health before 1914
- 4 The Great War and its aftermath, 1914 to 1921: discontent on the food front
- 5 Food and food technology in the interwar years
- 6 The question of malnutrition between the wars
- 7 The Second World War: the myth of a planned diet, 1939 to 1950
- 8 The revival of choice: food technology, retailing and eating in postwar Britain
- 9 Food consumption, nutrition and health since the Second World War
- 10 Overview: change in the twentieth century
- Appendix A
- Appendix B
- Bibliography
- Index
4 - The Great War and its aftermath, 1914 to 1921: discontent on the food front
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 17 March 2023
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of illustrations
- Preface
- Abbreviations
- 1 Plain fare: diet during industrialization
- 2 Food supply, shops and food safety, 1890 to 1914
- 3 Nutrition, environment and health before 1914
- 4 The Great War and its aftermath, 1914 to 1921: discontent on the food front
- 5 Food and food technology in the interwar years
- 6 The question of malnutrition between the wars
- 7 The Second World War: the myth of a planned diet, 1939 to 1950
- 8 The revival of choice: food technology, retailing and eating in postwar Britain
- 9 Food consumption, nutrition and health since the Second World War
- 10 Overview: change in the twentieth century
- Appendix A
- Appendix B
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
The effects on diet of the Great War differed considerably from prewar expectations, since neither the length of the conflict nor the effectiveness of the submarine campaign against merchant shipping had been envisaged by politicians and civil servants. For the first two years of hostilities against the Central Powers there were bumper harvests, and supplies were sustained by normal trade conditions. However, in view of the fact that the greater part of Britain's foodstuffs was imported, the lack of planning was a hazardous strategy, particularly since the supply of ‘the very narrow range of staples eaten by the working classes’ (i.e. bread, sugar, lard, cheese, bacon, condensed milk and meat) was at risk:
The British Isles produced only one-fifth of the wheat, two-fifths of the butter and cheese, three-fifths of the meat and bacon, and none of the sugar that they required. Only in respect of fish, potatoes, and milk were they selfsufficient, and even the consumption of liquid milk was eked out by importation of condensed varieties.
The lack of intervention by Walter Runciman, President of the Board of Trade from 1914 to 1916, to control food supplies was consistent with his ‘Free Trade’ principles and the Liberal government's general philosophy, but it prevented any coherent food policy from developing. The regulation of the food market therefore occurred in an ad hoc manner: the Home Secretary effected control of the sugar trade on 7 August 1914, by establishing a Royal Commission; from October 1914, the War Office requisitioned large imports of meat, especially frozen meat, to ensure the army's needs were met. In January 1915, there were five committees discussing various aspects of food supply, including, nominally, a Cabinet Committee on Food Supplies. From February 1915, when the German naval command adopted unrestricted attacks on merchant shipping, the growing success of German submarines and the increasing demands upon British shipping forced change. By 1917, U-boats had sunk 2M tons of Britain's merchant fleet. However, with one-third of Britain's ships engaged in supplying the armed forces abroad and one-fifth on loan to the Allies, only one-third was available for the home supply trade, including food.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- From Plain Fare to Fusion FoodBritish Diet from the 1890s to the 1990s, pp. 71 - 94Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2003