It is Edge Lane and the road on the right in the distance is Kingshill Road. We are sometime in the first decade of the 20th century and the boy is delivering milk.
There were still plenty of farms in Chorlton and some like the Higginbotham’s on the green proudly advertised “Families supplied with PURE NEW MILK twice daily from our own cows.”* Twice daily deliveries were offered by all the Creameries and dairy farmers of the area, and it is not hard to see why because with only a cold pantry to keep food fresh no one would stockpile milk.
I suppose the romantic in me might well dwell on the idea of locally produced milk being delivered to local homes but there were very real health risks, not least from diseases like TB and diphtheria. Medical opinion at the time was all well aware that milk could be contaminated in many different ways.
“the difficulty on the farm is to secure cleanliness in the milker, the atmosphere, the cooling plant and the churner. The difficulty in the town dairy is largely in the dust laden atmosphere, which alone shows the need of bottling. The difficulties in the home are dirty jugs and other vessels and improper places the milk is exposed until it is required” and in the “crowds of filthy shops in which the milk is exposed side by side with firewood and candles.”**
It led to a debate on the way forward. For some this meant the “nationalization” of the milk industry which more properly was the muncipilaztion of milk. This meant different things to different people. So for some it came down to municipal milk farms, for others that “all milk pass municipal examiners” or that the council should buy the bulk of the milk “and after examining it, retail it to the consumers [which] would produce a permanent market and a reasonable profit for the producers and the examination would enable the municipal analysts to trace unsatisfactory sources of supply and to deal with them.”***
It was very simple, “Any practical objections which may be raised against the municipality controlling all dairy farms which send milk into the city or against municipal depots for distribution cannot have greater weight than the objections to a public water supply, and the unanswerable argument in favour of the schemes seems to be that a pure and abundant supply of milk for every child in the city practically without cost is as indispensable as our water supply.”
Which I suppose is pretty sound. As it was here in Manchester according to the Medical Officer of Health the Corporation had “exceptional powers for the inspection of cows and cowsheds within the city boundaries under the Manchester Dairies Order,” [and of the 10, 527 visits made to cowsheds in 1905] “the results were fairly satisfactory with comparatively few instances of diseased cows being discovered.”****
All of which would have reassured me if I had been living in Chorlton in 1907, just three years after we had voted to be part of the city and that system of inspection.
And just a decade after our milk lad stood on Edge Lane dispensing his milk from the churn, The Creameries at 8 Wilbraham Road & & Egerton Terrace, Albany Road was advertising “The Milky Way to Health” with the “Don’t take any chances with your child’s health. Ensure the PURITY and CLEANLINESS of their MILK having it DELIVERED IN SEALED GLASS BOTTLES.”
Pictures; from the Lloyd collection and St John's Parish magazine 1928
*Chorlton-cum-Hardy Wesleyan Church Grand Bazaar booklet 1908
**James Long, Manchester Guardian, November 20th 1907
*** Manchester Guardian November 8th 1907
**** Report of Manchester’s Medical Officer of Health, Manchester Guardian, February 5th 1907
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