As far back as the 13th century people in Mid Wales were raising cattle to supply milk to the south of England and London. In her book Cows, Cobs and Corner Shops: The Story of London’s Welsh Dairies, Megan Hayes relates the origins of the London Welsh milk trade and its development into the 20th century. Her account is based on the experiences of families in Ceredigion, including that of her own parents who were part of it.
Cattle rearing was, Megan describes, “one of the earliest dominant occupations of west Wales” because of its suitable climate and terrain. Up until the mid-19th century, drovers accompanied groups of 200 to 300 animals on foot to London to supply the capital with milk. Tregaron was an important assembly point where drovers gathered the cattle together ready for the journey. Before undertaking such a long walk the cattle had to be shod, which was quite a difficult task, carried out by the drovers’ own blacksmiths. Megan says that there is a field close to Llanbadarn Fawr still referred to as Cae Pedoli (Shoeing Field). Once on the road the cattle would progress at a rate of about two miles an hour, the whole journey taking on average two months.
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| Two Mid-Wales Drovers, image by permission of National Library of Wales |
The development of the London Welsh milk trade reflected the problems of the rural economy in Mid Wales over centuries. Many of those involved in cattle rearing in Cardiganshire were poor and often had large families. Farming alone was insufficient to support the whole family, so it became common for some members to move to London to escape from hardship. Megan gives examples in her book of the grandfather of Mrs Olwen Jones of Lampeter who was one of twelve children, of whom eleven moved to London. From a family of ten from Pant-y-blawd Farm, Llanddewibrefi, six went to work in the dairy trade in London. Businesses were started and developed by family groups. Often older brothers were joined gradually by their siblings or other relatives, perhaps through marriage, who then went on to establish their own shops. Many also needed family support in London as they had little or no English.
The system of droving and keeping cows in the city continued until the advent of the railways. The opening of the line between Aberystwyth and London in 1864 meant that cows could be sent to London in a day. When they arrived in London the cattle were usually kept in very difficult conditions in basements, cellars or at the back of shops, with some more fortunate ones having an occasional break in outlying pastures.
By the end of the 19th century the tradition of keeping cows to milk in London was on the decline. Instead, milk was collected from farms in Cardiganshire in churns, taken to milk factories such as the one at Pont Llanio and then on the milk trains to London. After being pasteurised, the milk was supplied to shops where, up to the early 1940s, the dairymen usually had to bottle the milk themselves from large churns or supply the milk direct into customers’ own containers as can be seen in the photo below.
By 1939 there were quite a few Welsh independent dairies operating in London but that year marked the peak of Welsh dairy trade. The outbreak of the Second World War brought a host of new challenges and problems. Many children of the London dairymen were evacuated to Cardiganshire to live with grandparents or other relatives to escape the dangers of war. Some of these children would already have been used to spending time there during school holidays.
For the businesses in London there was the obvious risk in wartime of injury to the people working in the shops and to the shop premises particularly during the Blitz. One example of many given by Megan is of the experience of the parents of Betty Evans of Aberporth who kept eight milking cows. One night their home was bombed. They lost everything and were forced to return to their home in Felinfach. At that time there was no form of compensation for war damage.
Evan and Mary Evans from Llanbadarn had started in the milk trade with five other members of their family plus spouses in the 1920s. They had a shop in Union Road, Clapham. On 18 September 1940, they both lost their lives in the bombing. Fortunately, their children had already been evacuated to relatives in Wales. Less poignant but still sad and having an impact on trade was the experience of Jenkin Rees Lewis. He ran two dairy businesses and shops using a cart and Welsh cobs to deliver the milk - as many of the dairies of the time did. In 1940 the stables received a direct hit and all the horses were killed. The Welsh cobs used in the London milk trade were normally bought in Cardiganshire, from places such as Lampeter, Llanybydder or Tregaron and trained for their task before being taken to London.
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| he Evans Bros milk cart with a Welsh cob in Hampstead, reproduced from Megan Hayes' Cows, Cobs and Corner Shops: the Story of London’s Welsh Dairies |
Some businesses did manage to keep going amidst all the destruction. One such business was the shop belonging to the parents of Marjorie Hughes from Llandre. Megan describes from an oral account given by Marjorie how, after a bombing raid, the shop ceiling collapsed, the windows were blown out and they were left with no electricity. Somehow though the shop remained open and continued its important milk deliveries to its customers.
Another couple referred to by Megan who were able to carry on with their business were Dan Thomas and his wife Getta from Cwmtydu who had a dairy in Tottenham Street. “They spent each night during the Blitz sheltering in Goodge Street Tube station – they used the bags that held the day’s sales receipts as pillows for their heads. Every morning they returned to the shop as usual” (Hayes 2018 p173).
An obvious aspect of the effect of war on the London Welsh milk trade was that the men who ran the dairies were called up for military service. Often they had to leave the business altogether though in some cases they were permitted to do war work part time, for example as an air raid warden. This affected Welsh families in one of two ways – either daughters who had remained on the farm in Cardiganshire had to come up to London to run their brother or father’s business or sometimes the reverse - the women had to return to Wales to work on the family farm when the menfolk there were called up. In other cases, women had to return home because the shops they had worked in were destroyed during the bombing as described above, or perhaps to accompany children.
Megan Hayes cites the example of Rachel Jane Jones from Sarnau who had gone to work with a dairy family in 1928 but who chose to return to Wales with four of her London customers’ children. Megan says “…. At the last minute (Rachel) had a baby thrust into her arms with the instruction, ‘Take my baby to safety!’ The five children remained in Sarnau for the duration of the war and returned to London in 1945 as fluent Welsh speakers but with little English.
The widespread bomb damage in the city both made milk delivery much more difficult and reduced the number of customers. For example, the father of Iwan Jones of Lampeter's customers dropped from 600 customers to 100 because of the Blitz and evacuation.
One major change to the dairy industry at this time was the introduction of zoning which reduced the number of milk rounds so freeing more men to enlist. This, however, was of benefit to the Welsh dairies as their rounds were better organised and covered a reduced area. By the 1940s the milk was provided in bottles ready for delivery which was much easier and wartime rationing meant that people had to register with a particular shop so helping to ensure each shopkeeper’s number of customers.
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| Bessie Jones and colleague deliver milk during the Second World War, reproduced from Megan Hayes' Cows, Cobs and Corner Shops: the Story of London’s Welsh Dairies |
By 1939 the practice of keeping cows to milk in London had almost completely died out but it had a brief revival during the war by providing kosher milk to the large number of Jewish families who had arrived in London in the late 1930s to escape Nazi persecution. Kosher milk meant that cows had to be milked in the presence of someone from the Jewish community and then milked directly into the customer’s container. Megan Hayes gives an example of the parents of Evan Jones of Llanddewibrefi who supplied milk to strictly Orthodox Jews during the war.
After 1945 the whole practice of keeping cows in London ended because of the bomb damage, the effect of TB regulations and other economic factors. Of the dairymen who had been forced to leave London because of the war, very few returned to the milk trade. Private enterprises had been taken over by large combines, purchasing the milk rounds meaning that the dairy shops were no longer viable sources of income.
Very often dairymen from Cardiganshire planned to return to their roots in Wales when they retired from their business. Whilst in London they always retained a strong sense of their Welsh identity, maintaining close connections with their culture and place of birth. Many supported good causes such as the setting up of Welsh chapels in London which both fostered the use of their native language and supported the tradition of eisteddfodau so forming a strong community atmosphere. families involved in the milk trade also made generous contributions to their home areas.
One impressive example of the many mentioned by Megan Hayes is that of David Alban Davies, a retired milk merchant who in 1939 gave £35,000 to the then University College of Wales Aberystwyth to buy the 205 acres of land on Penglais which is now the main site of the university. When Alban Davies retired after a long career, he returned to live in his place of birth at Llanrhystud.
Another notable benefactor of the area was Sir David James who came originally from Pantyfedwen near Strata Florida. He started in the London Welsh milk trade when he went to Westminster to help relatives run a dairy. Following his later success as a businessman in various areas of work he generously financed the building of the Pavilion at Pontrhydyfendigaid.
During the Second World the long-established London Welsh milk trade was still a very significant activity. As reflected in the detailed research carried out by Megan Hayes, many present-day residents of Ceredigion have fascinating stories of their parents’ or grandparents’ connections to the trade. However, the direct family link between Ceredigion and London dairies lessened after 1945 when refrigeration solved the problems of storing milk safely and of course milk came to be sold in a much wider variety of shops and on a much larger scale. Frequently this resulted in post war generations choosing to enter other professions, as Megan herself did. However, in her case the family connection with the dairy trade continued with a cousin of Megan’s mother, Phoebe James from Brongest, keeping a shop in Gray’s Inn Road in Bloomsbury until after the end of the war.
Blog by Frances Foley
Based on Hayes M. Cows, Cobs and Corner Shops: The Story of London’s Welsh Dairies / Y Lon Laeth i’r Ddinas: Hanes Llaethdai Cymru Llundain ,Y Lolfa, Talybont, Ceredigion, 2018
With grateful thanks to Megan Hayes for her advice and for allowing the use of some of the photos she collected for the book.
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