For more about shops and shopping in the early 1900s
see the 'shops and
tradesmen' tab in the above menu.
When my mother sent me on errands to buy meat, it was always to the butcher's shop at the corner of Bulwer Road in Edmonton.
The butcher's shop in Silver Street Edmonton, early 1900s. Detail of a larger photo on old Edmonton page.
See below for an enlargement of the notice about sausages.
This shop was fairly typical of the other butcher's shops in Edmonton. I had to go there about once a week and it was usually to get 3/4 of a pound of leg of beef and a 1/4 of a pound of beef suet for a meat pudding. I was never happy about this errand because my mother would always tell me to tell the butcher that she didn't want too much sinew. Yet far too often there was too much for her taste. Then she made me take the meat back which made me feel uncomfortable.
The suet was bought as a lump and the butcher sometimes cut it out of a side of beef while I watched. These sides of beef would either be hanging up from large hooks suspended in the shop or in an ice-safe which was kept cool with ice supplied by the ice man.
Sausages were made in full view in a red sausage machine. In at the top would go the meat (and probably some meal and flavourings as well, although I can't be sure). Then the butcher would put the skins on the nozzle and turn the handle. It was fascinating for me to see him take the long string of the emerging sausage in this hands and with a flip of his fingers make a string of individual sausages. These would be put over a hook and hung in the shop window.
It was not unusual for bones to be on sale for women to use to flavour their soups. Lumps of fat were on sale too for rendering down for dripping, which was a popular meal on its own, spread on a slice of toast.
If you have an old photo which illustrates the way of life that my mother describes, I would very much appreciate a copy. Pat Cryer
The butcher had the appearance of a butcher because he was big with a florid face and he had a belt round his waist which was unusual for other shop-keepers. He kept the shop beautifully clean with fresh sawdust on the floor and shiny tiles on the walls. At the end of every day, the chopping board, which looked rather like a heavy three-legged stool was scrubbed with a wire brush and then washed. The chopper and knives had the same treatment. The day's sawdust, which had absorbed or coated spills, was swept up and new was put down.
My mother didn't stay with one butcher. She loved looking at meat in butchers' shops. She would say, "That’s a lovely bit of beef", etc. I wouldn’t have known.
I am grateful to Mirander Pender - see http://edmontonodyssey.blogspot.com - for this photo of Durrants butchers shop in Lower Edmonton, dated 1910. It is special because it really does show everything involved in butchery during the Edwardian era. Note the way that the meat was hung outside as well as in the shop window; the large cuts of beef or pork on the butcher's block, the clothes that the butcher and his assistants were wearing with their large white aprons and belts round their waists; the tools that they were holding and the very young delivery boy with his delivery bike. The only obvious difference between the photo and my mother's description of a butcher's shop is that the chopping boards in the photo have four legs rather than three - or perhaps the photo shows small display tables.
The placard on the left reads:
HOME KILLED ENGLISH BEEF
XMAS FARE GALORE
DELICIOUS PORK
SAUSAGES AND SAUSAGE MEAT
<...illegible...>
DURRANTS
The sign above the shop reads:
Family Butcher DURRANT Also at Enfield Town
ESTABLISHED 1784
These childhood recollections are of local butchers in a working class area of north London around the time of the 1911 census.