Now! Then! 2024! - Yorkshire On This Day

Excerpt

Gentlemen,

I beg to hand you the following analysis of bread purchased from five of the principal bakers in the town:

1. 4 lb. of alum per 20 stones of flour;
2. 3 lb. 8 oz. of alum per 20 stone of flour;
3. 3 lb. of alum per 20 stone of flour;
4. 2 lb. 4 oz. of alum per 20 stones of flour;
5. 2 lb. of alum per 20 stone of flour.

The alum is introduced in order to give inferior qualities of flour the appearance of superior qualities; and when taken by the consumer in these large quantities must have a very injurious effect on the system.

Comment

Comment

Via the following year’s parliamentary select committee report (House of Commons 1856). Toxicology. The following Saturday the Mercury published rebuttals from two bakers.

Something to say? Get in touch

Original

ALUM IN BREAD.
TO THE EDITORS OF THE LEEDS MERCURY.
Leeds, Oct. 12th, 1855.
Gentlemen,-I beg to hand you the following analysis of bread purchased from five of the principal bakers in the town:-
No. 1 … 4lbs. of alum per 20 stones of flour;
No. 2 … 3lb. 8oz. of alum per 20 stone of flour;
No. 3, 3lb. of alum per 20 stone of flour;
No. 4, 2lb. 4 oz. of alum per 20 stones of flour:
No. 5, 2lb. of alum per 20 stone of flour.

The alum is introduced in order to give inferior qualities of flour the appearance of superior qualities; and when taken by the consumer in these large quantities must have a very injurious effect on the system.
Yours respectfully,
C. L. Dresser.

132 words.

Tags

Tags are assigned inclusively on the basis of an entry’s original text and any comment. You may find this confusing if you only read an entry excerpt.

• Adulterant (1) ·
• Alum (4) ·
• Bread (8) ·
• Flour (3) ·
• Fraud (21) ·
• Leeds Mercury (18), leading Whig newspaper founded by John Hirst in 1718, bought by Nonconformist-Liberal Edward Baines in 1801 and used to advocate some types of social and political reform, remained in the family for two more generations ·
• 📌Leeds (235) ·

All tags.

Similar

• 2 October 1880: The Leeds Mercury reproduces a typographical intemperance tree from the 1840s origins of the Band of Hope
• 1 July 1718: The first issue of the Leeds Mercury consists of London news presided over by a woodcut of a fat postman in a wig
• 18 October 1765: Court-appointed experts order alum producers Samuel Howlett and John Mathews of Iburndale, Sleights, to clean up Whitby harbour and the Esk
• 13 July 1858: A visit to an alum works near Whitby
• 4 September 1764: Laurence Sterne, curate at Coxwold, is minded to sin at Scarborough
• 21 August 1880: Johnnie W. recounts a wildflower expedition in the children’s column of the Leeds Mercury
• 9 January 1772: Civil engineer John Smeaton suggests how to avoid a water conflict between the Boroughbridge mills and the new River Ure navigation from Ripon
• 19 September 1835: The Leeds Mercury attacks property valuations under the recent Municipal Corporations Act, which facilitate the political careers of men from the centre of town
• 25 June 1808: Dr Campbell, lodging above a chandler’s on Leeds Kirkgate, advertises the results of his treatment of anorexia, Napoleonic wounds, and all other known illnesses
• 30 May 1835: The (Tory-dominated) Leeds Corporation gives its assets to three cronies to prevent their being inherited by the new (Whiggish) town council created by the Municipal Corporations Act