When sugar was not a public enemy

The First World War saw draconian restrictions applied to food. It was shock to the sweet-toothed nation when teacakes were banned in 1917.

 

Sugar was not viewed as a bad thing in Britain a hundred years ago. Essential to tea (the national beverage) and for making plain food palatable, it was regarded as a vital, energy-providing foodstuff.

 

Vitamins were newly-discovered, so it was unsure how they affected health. Undue stress was therefore placed on calories in dietary calculations. The poorest Britons had restricted access to fresh milk and often gave their infants sugar-rich condensed milk instead. It's unsurprising that a fifth of children died before their first birthday.

 

If anything, the First War, which Britain entered in August 1914, made the nation's sweet tooth even sweeter. Sweets would not be rationed (unlike in the Second World War) and chocolate and biscuits were regularly sent to the Tommies at the front, in an attempt to raise their morale.

 

It was apparent from the start of the war that national supplies of three vital commodities – bread, meat and sugar – would need to be carefully managed. The man placed in charge of the 'big three' was the nation's first food minister, Lord Devonport, who had made a fortune from a national grocery chain. He introduced a voluntary rationing scheme in February 1917.

 

As food controller, he was able to use secondary legislation annexed to the wide-ranging Defence of the Realm Act (which banned bonfires, kite flying and whistling for taxes) to push government intervention into unprecedented areas, through food control orders. A maximum quota was imposed for beer production and food hoarding was made a criminal offence, with widely drawn search powers granted by the food controller. 

 

To conserve vital national supplies rules were imposed in 1917 that banned pastries, crumpets and teacakes (cakes, buns and biscuits were still allowed), specified maximum quantities of flour in bread and diverted wheat, rice and rye flour for human consumption. Evening meals of more than three courses were prohibited – the rules explained that plain cheese was not regarded as a course. Bread had to be sold stale, so that it could be sliced more thinly.

 

Enter the jam police

 

Jam makers, including branches of the newly-formed Women’s Institute, could apply for additional supplies of sugar. An intriguing note attached to the sugar order explained that rhubarb, although a 'soft fruit', would not justify an application for 'a large amount of sugar' for the purpose of jam-making. No sugar was allowed for apple and marrow jam.

 

The note added, “all sugar found to have been obtained by misrepresentation should be returned to the grocer through which the applicant obtained it”, pending instructions from the Royal Sugar Commission.

 

This intrusion into jam-making must have seemed a curious addition to the duties of local authority sanitary inspectors, who were tasked to enforce a growing list of food orders, especially as their manpower had been drastically depleted by the war. They were advised to use discretion but to show no leniency to those who wilfully broke the law.

 

Penalties for breaking the rules could be severe. In 1917, Croydon magistrates fined a Mitcham grocer £40 (more than £3,000 today) for selling butter at excessive prices. Breaches of the following year's rationing order, such as misappropriating ration books, could attract custodial sentences.

 

Good-bye Lord Devonport

 

Lord Devonport was widely seen to be ineffectual and too close to food producers’ interests to do his job rigorously. Worse for him, queues in shops were getting longer and prices were increasing. He was forced by public pressure, to resign. 

 

In July 1917, prime minister Lloyd George chose Lord Rhondda, a mining magnate from South Wales, to develop a more rigorous and well-enforced food system. Lord Rhondda would work to wider terms of reference than his predecessor. He was determined to conserve supplies and distribute them as equally as possible between rich and poor and to keep prices down.

 

Rhondda directed local authorities to set up food committees, each with a minimum of 12 members, to be in charge of setting prices, implementing food control orders and running local economy campaigns. Bradford's food committee first met in August 1917. Over the following months, it set up sub-committees for sugar, meet, flour, bread, potatoes and milk. Two officers were appointed to make sure that the law was being followed. Bradford was allocated a budget of £265 to encourage people to eat less.

 

Sugar was the first commodity to be compulsorily rationed. From January 1918, householder had to produce sugar cards at registered retailers to obtain their weekly allowance. One step ahead of still-growing queues, ration books were issued to all households in July 1918, adding meat, milk, butter, cheese and margarine.

 

The Ministry of Food was dissolved in 1921. It is a credit to Lord Rhondda that his carefully thought-out scheme, balancing consent and coercion, had served its purpose – although sometimes only just. In the Second World War, rationing was introduced in January 1940, following a template that had already been set.