Little milk was generally drunk in liquid form by town dwelling adults in the nineteenth century. It is due to supply of milk to the expanding towns and large urban settlements posed many difficulties.
Milk of good quality was expensive and out of reach of the working classes. AT that time not only fresh milk but likewise condensed milk was of importance for the urban consumer.
Milk and buttermilk were mainly used as ingredients for cereal porridges.
Most was used as an addition to hot beverages, especially tea, and to to the porridge that was a main article of diet in Scotland and northern English countries; smaller amount also went into milk puddings and baking, particularly in better off households.
While milk was too rich for weaning infants but was often boiled with an equal quantity of water and some added flavour to make what was considered suitable food for babies.
It was described that in Cheshire breakfast in mid-century as consisting of a large platter porridge in the centre of the table and smaller platters of milk before each person, each then dipped his spoon into the porridge, taking as much or little as they wished to add to the cold milk.
In Scotland two meals a day of oatmeal porridge were customary in rural areas where accounts in the 1860s show laborers drinking milk with or after their food as well as adding it their porridge.
In the early years, the supply and preparation of milk were completely in the hands of private enterprises and independent tradesmen.
By the late nineteenth century, however many municipalities had established their own management system dealing with milk supply and distribution.
End of the nineteenth century, it had become strongly entrenched with such traditional butter, cheese and milk strongholds as Cheshire and Somerset; but also a number new or partly new dairying are had emerged, some of which included localities where cereal cultivation and mixed, cereal and livestock, farming had formerly prevailed.
Railway companies, in particular the Great Western Railway which provided special trains travelling through the night from south-west England to London, Bristol and Birmingham, invested quite heavily in the running of milk trains from pastoral England to the major cities.
Milk Consumption in Nineteenth Century in Britain
