Our Daily Meat - A Feature on the Butchery Trade during WWII

In preparation for NUP's new title 'Shoulder of Mutton Field' by Desmond Whyman. NUP has teamed up with Best of British magazine for a feature about the history of meat rationing in the UK during war time:

"Valuable lessons about rationing were learned in WWI and by 1938, the country was prepared for war. Christmas 1939 saw adverts for well stocked butchers mixed with those for air raid shelters. The first Christmas at war ended on an optimistic note – perhaps things would not be too bad. Then the ‘phony war’ ended suddenly, and the deprivations of real war became apparent.


The man responsible for feeding the nation was Frederick James Marquis,1st Baron Woolton, a former MD of a department store. Woolton rapidly became a household name and his staff would number 39,000. His principle was to ration nothing, however scarce, until there was enough to go round and then to ensure that this ration was always honoured.


Now the meat industry was completely subject to directives from the Government: all wholesale meat markets were closed and slaughterhouses were nationalised. Retail butchers were allocated quantities of meat equal to their sales just prior to the beginning of the war.


Meat rationing
On Monday January 8th, 1940, food rationing began. Notices stated ‘Sold Out’, ‘Only One Each’, ‘Awaiting Delivery’, ‘Coupons Required’ and ‘Waste Not Want Not’, and ration books were essential. Marlene Crilly in the book Blitz Kids: ‘We were dug out from (the) debris with no more than cuts and bruises… but Mum insisted on (finding) our ration books… it took the neighbours some time and… physical force to stop her’.


On the first day, bacon, ham and a few weeks later in March, meat, were rationed by price and then by weight. The average allowance was seven ounces of meat and two ounces of corned beef a week. Thomas Buttling spent ‘all morning cutting up 6lb tins of corn beef for the customers’ few pennies-worth each’. Imported meat came in pre-boned to save space and as a result even butchers, let alone their customers, sometimes struggled to recognise the relevant joint. Sausages, offal, poultry, fish, rabbits, game, goat, and horse meat were un-rationed, but subject to supply and price control. Dried beef and mutton in powder or compressed blocks was imported for makers of pies, cooked meat dishes and restaurants.


Like Corporal Jones in Dad’s Army, butchers had to be careful to avoid confrontations. A hostile crowd of women customers attacked a butcher who accidentally weighed a customer’s corn beef with two sheets of greaseproof paper…


Dodgy meat 
At the start of the war, bacon was considered vital to morale. This saw the introduction of ‘macon’, a cured or smoked mutton substitute. One butcher said: “It sold but was not popular,” and by 1940, production ceased. The legal wartime content of sausages and sausage meat was 37% meat, 7% soya and 55% filler or National flour with added water and seasoning – but sausages were often rumoured to contain horse meat and sawdust. Another (extremely unpopular) item, whale meat – tinned or frozen – was virtually indigestible, strong-smelling and not for the faint-hearted. Pig, rabbit, goat, and poultry clubs were organised. Pigs were kept in makeshift sties in towns and cities. The vast wild rabbit population became an asset during the war. Special trains delivered thousands of rabbits to London each day. Diners were also confronted with meatless dishes – mock duck, goose, rissoles, venison and others. As the war dragged on there was a mass exodus of customers from heavily bombed areas and many shops were destroyed or unusable and old mobile butchers or converted lorries were used."


Shoulder of Mutton Field by Desmond Whyman
(Nottingham University Press, soft-back, £25-00, ISBN 978 1 907284 73 1) 
There was a time when customers visited the butcher’s shop three or four times a week. That’s no longer the case but there was more to the retail butcher’s trade than a striped apron and two lamb chops – as this 144-page book explains, using Camden as an example.


To register Interest for this title, please click here.


Best of British Magazine

Best of British magazine features nostalgia of the 40s, 50s and 60s. Alongside features contributed by experts, it is a major source of first hand reader accounts of their day to day lives, work and military experiences in these periods. The magazine is published monthly and also includes the best of Britain today, with extensive events listings and visits to interesting people and places.

Please visit the Best of British website for more information.