Watered Down Milk

William Hyde with Biddenham Dairies handcart c.1930 [Z50/141/551]

Tuesday 21st August 1917: Edward A. Greenaway of Iddesleigh Road, Bedford, has been fined ten shillings for selling watered down milk. Mr. Edward Fell told the court he had met Mr. Greenaway with a bicycle and can and asked for a pint sample of new milk. Mr. Greenaway said the milk was not his own, but that he had bought it. The next morning Mr. Greenaway called at Mr. Fell’s office and told him he had been very busy that morning, that his wife had helped him to wash out the churn but had left some water in it. When the sample of milk was tested, it was found to contain 11.8% of added water. Mr. Greenaway’s defence was that he had run out of his own milk so went across the road to borrow some from a neighbour. While he was away his wife washed out the churn. She was anxious about her son who had been reported wounded and went out in a hurry to look for the postman, leaving a small amount of water in the bottom. In the meantime he returned and filled the church with milk, not realising that there was water in it. He had been at Bedford for 27 years and in the milk trade for 16, without any previous complaint against him.

Source: Bedfordshire Times, 24th August 1917