Salvation Army Picture of "Farthing Breakfast"

Around the year 1900 there was a lot of concern about the physical state of the people of Britain. Even though there had been tremendous efforts in the late 19^th century to provide better public health, housing and education, many children were still no more healthy than they had been back in the 1840s.

The new Liberal government elected in 1906 passed various measures to try to deal with this problem. They were particularly concerned to try to improve the health of children. They passed laws to ensure midwives were notified of each new-born baby, they introduced School Medical Examinations. And, in 1906, they gave permission for schools to offer meals to their pupils. But what kind of meals?
The Documents show how one city, Bradford, carried out an experiment to see how the system might operate.

Taken from City of Bradford Education Committee Report by the Medical Superintendent, Ralph H Crowley M.D., M.R.C.P. in conjunction with the Superintendent of Domestic Subjects, Marian E. Cuff, on a Course of Meals given to Necessitous Children from April to July, 1907.

'The Salvation Army International Heritage Centre'
NOTE on OLD MONEY. A farthing was a quarter of an old penny; there were 12 old pennies in a shilling.
A shilling=5p; an old penny = less than half of 1p; a farthing = one tenth of 1p.

1. Read Source 1a

1a. Make a summary of what the experiment involved: how many children? for how long? which meals? etc.

1b. How were the children chosen? Why do you think they chose these children?

1c. Look at paragraph 3. "Every effort was made to make the meals, as far as possible, educational". What does "Educational" mean here? What was being taught? How did the children react?

1d. Why were the tablecloths dirty afterwards?

2. Read Source 1b (both parts of the document)

The breakfasts

2a. How did the children react to being offered porridge for breakfast - at first? After three days?

2b. How would you react to being offered porridge for breakfast?

The dinners

2c. What problem was Miss Cuff trying to solve with her dinner menus?

2d. What criticism might be made of some of the recipes?

2e. How does the Report meet that criticism?

2f. What seems to be the attitude of Bradford Education Committee towards poor parents? Do you think this is fair?

3. Read Source 1c

3a. What effect did providing meals have on the weight of the children?

3b. What happened to their weights during the holidays?

3c. Why does the dotted line go up?

4. Look at Source 2

4a. What does the photograph tell you about the kinds of children who took these breakfasts?

4b. One farthing was very little, even then. Why do you think the Salvation Army charged anything at all?

4c. Why did the government bring in school meals, rather than leaving it to charitable organisations like the Salvation Army?

5. Conclusions

5a. Miss Cuff has to give a short report to Bradford Education Committee about her "experiment". Note down the five key points you think she should make.

5b. Apart from the children putting on weight, what was the "experiment" intended to teach - the children? Their parents?

6. For discussion

(1) From 1907, when they began, school meals had to meet certain nutritional standards. These were abolished in 1981: kitchens could serve up what they liked provided it made money, children could buy what they liked. Recently, the government has become worried about child health issues such as malnutrition, but also obesity. Nutritional rules have been re-imposed.

Is it the government's job to tell children what they should eat?

What do you think school meals should be like?

(2) Recently some schools have begun to offer breakfasts as well as dinners. Why have they done this?
Do you think this is a good idea?

Anxiety about the health of the people of Britain in 1900 came from several quarters.

Reformers, either Evangelical Christians or Socialists, exclaimed at the terrible conditions many people lived in. Statisticians pointed out that the health of some people, particularly children, was no better than it had been in the 1840s at the height of the horrors of the Industrial Revolution. Child mortality, for example, was 150 per 1,000 births - that is, of every 1,000 babies born, 150 failed to reach the age of 5 (the figure today is 15 per 1000).The greatest concern, however, came from government and army leaders who were worried about the physical health of the British people. They were shocked to find, when they were recruiting for the Boer War (1899-1902), that so many young men were too small, too under-nourished or too ill to be taken into the army. How was Britain going to fight its wars in future? A "Committee on Physical Deterioration" was set up.

All this came as a terrible disappointment to many people. You probably know how awful -unhealthy, insanitary and overcrowded - the cities of the early Industrial Revolution were. Industrial cities were new and posed new problems: there were several outbreaks of cholera in British cities, killing thousands each time. However, central government had worked hard to deal with these conditions, passing laws to ensure a clean water supply, better houses, providing education and then making it compulsory. There were no serious outbreaks of cholera after 1865. City Corporations had provided water supplies, parks, cleaner streets, refuse disposal, drains, public baths, libraries and schools. Yet these huge efforts did not seem to be working.

The problem really, of course, was poverty. Charles Booth made a massive survey of the poor of London, called "Life and Labour of the People of London", published in 17 volumes between 1889 and 1903. He was a rich ship-owner and set out to prove that there were not as many poor people as reformers claimed and that those that were poor were so through their own fault. In fact he found quite the opposite: about a quarter of the people of London did not have enough to live on, even if they had a permanent job and spent their wages wisely. Seebohm Rowntree carried out a survey of working class families in the city of York in 1901. He found that even if they had jobs, wages were often too low to ensure a decent standard of living. The losers were usually mothers, who went short rather than let their husbands or children go hungry, and children. Children did not get the good diet they needed -partly because their parents were too poor and partly because the parents did not understand nutrition. Medical care cost money, and parents did not call a doctor for their children unless they were desperate.

Some organisations, like the Salvation Army, intervened where it was most needed by offering cheap meals for children, see Source 2. Some School Boards, notably the London School Board, began to offer cheap, or free, school dinners. Their motive was practical: hungry children cannot learn.

The Liberal government, which was elected with a huge majority in 1906, was committed to reform. The Labour Party, newly formed in 1900 had its first M.P.s and the Liberals wanted to show that they could look after working people just as well as the Labour Party.

In 1907 they ordered that midwives had to be told of all babies born, so that they could check on their physical condition and give advice to the mothers. In 1907 they ordered School Medical examinations to be carried out, so as to catch ill children early. The Education (Provision of Meals) Act of 1906 was part of the government's plan to ensure that British children grew up healthy.

For another Snapshot on children and schools at this time, see "How we were Taught"

For more information try the following website:

Information on social reformers

How we were taught