Figure 1.--This World War II press photograph shows school children serbing child evacuees queuing at Lacock Abbey for their milk. The Abbey was located in the village of Lacock, in Wiltshire. Small villages and towns like Lacock were safe from Luftwaffe bombing and thus where evacuee children were sent for safety. A major problem was these local communities had to cope with accomodating the evaucuees in the small local schools. A school had bbe provided in Lacock village by Henry Fox Talbot of photographyb fame who owned the Abbey as a famioly residence (1824), with accommodation for 100 pupils. Another classroom was added (1852) and around this time it became a National School. Schools like this all over England had to deal with the influx of evacuee fame. Lacock Abbey since King Henry VIII's disolution of the monasteries was converted intom a private residencer. The Abbey during the World War II Blitz became a residential facility for evacuee children which continued until the final months of the War. We think that families took in most of the evauee childre, but we do note residential facilities confusingly called 'homes'.

One very important addition food sources, especially for our website is schools food programs. The MOE from the very start of the War engaged in proactive effort to provide food to sdchool children. The first step was to incourage schools to go into the gardening business given the built in labor xsupply and to support them in doing so. And as the War progressed more snd mor schools were offering sdchool dinners (lunches). We believe that schools distributed milk in tyhe morming We believe that this had begun well before the War. The school milk was in addition to the milk mums could buy in ghe xhop with the children's rastion books. (every Btrit had a ration book, including children and youths.) Over time schools began providing dinners (lunch) to the children. This also had begun before the swar, but unlike the morning milk break was not widespread. School dinners were a major undertaking because few schools had kitches of any kind. This was all complicated because a massive transformation of British schools was set in motion by the War. Some one fifth of British schools were destroyed or damaged in the Blitz (1940-41). Thousands of schools were taken over by the Government for various purposes during the War. This was especially the case in southern England along the coast. With the evacuation of city children, city schools lot many of their pupils. as a result many schools were closed. Country and village schools had to deal with the massive influx of city evacuees wehicvh became a huge problem. These schools did have one advantage. Thre was plently of ground for sdchool vgertsvle gardens. This is a facinating story that is largely untold by World War II historins who tend to focus solely on the evacuastions which is a maor story in itself. Moring milk and school dinners (lunch) became a statuatory duty. And in the last year of the war some 1.6 million lunches were being served to the children daily. That amounted to a about a third of the school population. (Remember at the time most British school children only asttended primary school.) Under privlidged children got free meals, most children paid 4-5 pennies to cover the cost.

Before the War

We believe that morning milk for the school children was fairly widespread before the War, but we do not yet have any details. We do not know when the school milk program was intriduced and if the children had to pay. There was no government school feeding program. Some charities were ffering feeding programs. Here we see a Salvation Army program (figure 1). Most children brought their lunch or went home for lunch. Children lived close to their primary schools snd most mothers did not work. Britain had made great strudes in public health during the Victorian era. At the turn of the 20th century, British leaders were shocked as they fought the Bohr War b to see the numbre of young men rejected for military service for a range of reasons, but basicallhy poor physical condition. [Finch] This would lead Lord Baden Powell to found the Boy Scout movement to improve the health of Brtiush boys. Other authoritis were also concerned. It was found that despite the achievement of the Victorians, many children were still no more healthy than had been the case at mid-century. A new Liberal Government was elected (1905). This led to the premiershiop of Herbert Asquith and ax remarable era of reform. Asquith oversaw domestic reforms, including social insurance, icluding Old Age Pensions (1908) and National Insurance Act (1911). They formulated a range of reforms to address the issduie of childfren's health. A law was passed to ensure midwives were notified of each birth. Another reform was School Medical Examinations A law was passed tompermit schools to offer meals. This only involved permission, no porogram was enacted or funding provided. It was all up to local authorities. local school boards began experimenting with the idea, both school breakfasts and dinners (lunch). They found that the weight of children did increase with school meals. 【City of Bradford】 Children underweight was a orimary sign iof poor health. There was no problem of childhood obesity at the time. Local school authorities began adopting school dinner (lunch) programs. Gradually the school meal problem was expabded. The need during the Deoression increased. As a result, at the time Britain was plunged into War (1939), about half of all locsl educationasl authiorities (LEAs) had scghool feeding prograsms. 【Finch】 A Ministry of Education publication reports the 'provision of a mid-day meal for all children whose parents wanted them to have it, on payment of approximately the cost of the food, or free of charge in cases of hardship, became national policy." 【MOE]

School Disruptionss

This was all complicated because a massive transformation of British schools was set in motion by the War. Some one fifth of British schools were destroyed or damaged in the Blitz (1940-41). Thousands of schools were taken over by the Government for various purposes during the War. This was especially the case in southern England along the coast. With the evacuation of city children, city schools lot many of their pupils. as a result many schools were closed. Country and village schools had to deal with the massive influx of city evacuees which became a huge problem for many local communities. These schools did have one advsntage. Thre was plently of ground for school vgertable gardens

School Gardening

One very important addition food sources, especially for our website is schools food programs. The Ministry of Education (MOE) through the Board of Education from the very start of the War engaged in proactive effort to provide food to school children. The first step was to incourage schools to go into the gardening business given the built in labor supply and to support them in doing so. There was only so much that could immediately done atb the natioanl level, but individualm schools could a lot tomprepare for school gardeming. Seprember immediately was no the best time to start gardening. But at least there was time to have everything ready for the Spring. Local school auhoities immeduiately began encouraging schools to lead the way in their communities to contribute to food production. Boards of Educastion (BOEs issued instructions for headmasters. The first such memorandum from one board encourged head masters to secure an area of land for gardening. 【BOE, Memo 1】 It should be noted that most city schools had a smll paved play area, but no grounds. The BOE advised, "We are a nation of gardeners and there can be very few schools upon the staff of which one or more competent amateur gardeners are not to be found who can take general charge of projects of this kind." 【BOE, Memo 1】. Further memos had detailed information. They advised divinding the garden into two sections. Section A could include: broad beans, early potastoes, globe beets, brussel sprouts, autumn cabbage, carrots, parsnios, and haricot beans. Part B was for the main crop--potatoes. 【BOE, Memo 14】 They advised that 10 boys could accomplish the task. They specfied boys. In addition to gardening, schools were encouraged to be involved in the collection of the ‘Wild Food Crop’, especiaslly the blackberry crop. Participating schools were urged to ‘get in touch with their fruit preservation centre as soon as possible, to arrange where and when the fruit is to be delivered’. This drive to collect as much as possible was ‘to make up for the poor crops of soft and stone fruit…’ that appears to have occurred the previous year. 【BOE, Memo 14】 Rural schools were enciourged to work with livestock and bees. 【BOE, Memo 19】

Morning Milk

We believe that schools distributed milk in the morning. I remember this at my elementary school in America. It was not part of morning break (recess). We asre not sure how this was done in Britain We all had to bring in milk money. . The school milk was in asddition tyo the milk mums could buy in the shops with the children's ration books. (Every Btrit had a ration book, including children and youths.) We believe gthast thde children go real bottled milk and not the powdered milk that came from America as part of Lnd Lease.

School Dinners

Over time as the war proigressed, schools began providing dinners (lunch) to the children. This also had begun before the Wwar, but unlike the morning milk program was not widespread. School dinners were a majpr undertaking because few schools had kitches of any kind. Early instructions carried out helpful instruction like, "Milk, wholemeal bread or baked potatoes with margarine, cheese and a salad or fruit make an excellent meal with the minimum of cooking ...." This is a facinating story that is largely untold by World War II historins who tend to focus solely on the evacuations which is a major story in itself. The first National School Meals Policy was adopted (1941). The Policy set the first nutritional guidelines for school lunches, requiring balanced meals which including protein, fat, and calories. 【Evans and Harper】 As far as we can tell, in the cities schoolm lunches were peopared centrally and delivered to the schools in tin pales like grabage cans. Reports from the grown up children whon has tyon eat bthem suggest they were pretty awful. Available reoorts differ on the number of children eating them. Some reports suggest that most of the children preferred to go home for lunch. "School dinners were served in the late 1940s at my primary school, but no-one who lived nearby stayed for them. I'm not sure why, since food at home was rationed and school meals were not. I clearly remember seeing those school dinners arrive by lorry in large aluminium drums, having been cooked centrally somewhere. Judging by the smell, they were little more than tepid cabbage in flavoured water, probably followed by runny custard." This meant, howeverr, that the food had ton come out of the rationed allocation. So mothers may have encouraged then to stay for the meal. And some reports suggest that most children stayed for the meals. "School dinners during the war years were four and a half old pennies per day. On Monday morning we handed our money for the week to our teacher At dinner time, tables and chairs were set up in the school hall. Most children had school dinners as they were not part of rations." Another former student writes, "A meal served two or three times a week (at least!) at my primary school was the notorious but apparently nutritious 'rissole and mash'! A 'rissole', or rather 'the rissole' - as there was only one each - was a sausage-like concoction consisting mainly of oatmeal and dried egg powder and water, with miniscule scraps of any available minced meat. It was impossible to identify the origin, whether pork, chicken or beef. It all tasted the same. The resulting concoction was coated in breadcrumb and fried in lard. With it was served a dollop of mashed potatoes and cabbage with a thin watery 'gravy'. Semolina or tapioca - generally known as 'frog's spawn' -- to follow, with runny custard. Occasionally, if we were really lucky, there would be a sponge pudding with runny jam! That was a real treat! The only other school dinner I remember was a kind of dumpling stew, almost entirely vegetable in content, it bobbed about in a broth of some sort, possibly chicken, but you couldn't be sure. I hated it, but ate it anyway." Moring milk and school dinners (lunch) became a statuatory duty (1944). And in the last year of the war some 1.6 million lunches were being served to the children daily. That amounted to a about a third of the school population. (Remember at the time most British school children only asttended primary school.) Underprivlidged children got free meals, most children paid 4-5 pennies to cover the cost. " Another report describes her various school lunches dasy byb day. "I kept a “Boots scribbling diary” while at school in 1942 and thought a few school dinner menus might be of interest. (as written) April 30th Fish cake, white sauce, a carrot and 15 peas. Pud was a brown one with lots of sultanas and jam sauce. May 1st Greens, gravy and meat, a spud. Prunes and custard for pud. July 24th Cold meat with mayonnaise, lettuce, tomato and new spuds, a lumpy ground rice with PILES of strawberry jam. July 20th Had ½ greenish tomato, new spuds, spam and a date pud and custard. Oct 9th Had fish cakes, parsley sauce, carrots, spuds and steamed pud full of dates. Oct 16th Had stewed bif, thick gravy, cabbage, spuds and a raw apple and a chocolate biscuit, 2nd of ½ apple and biscuit. Dec 2nd Had stew, swede, spud and jam roll for pud. Dec 10th Piles of mashed spud, beetroot, spam and baked apple and custard. I have given examples of each season. There was also rice pudding always available, and water to drink." The British Government required local authorities to provide school dinners (1944). The dinners had to be consistent with legal nutritional requirements. The government did not begin to pay the the full cost of school meals until (1947).  Free school meals were available to children with families on very low incomes.

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Sources

Board of Education, Warwickshire County?, Schools in War Time. Memorandum 1 "Schools and food production" (September 1939).

Board of Education, Warwickshire County?, Schools in War Time. Memorandum 14 "Spring work in the garden".

Board of Education, Warwickshire County?, Schools in War Time. Memorandum 19.

Board of Education, Warwickshire County?, Schools in War Time. Memorandum 24..

Board of Education, Warwickshire County?, Schools in War Time. Memorandum 27 "Wild food crops".

City of Bradford Education Committee Report. Overssen by the Medical Superintendent, Ralph H Crowley MD, MRCP 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).

Evans, C.E.L. and C.E. Harper. "A history and review of school meal standards in the UK," Journal of Human Nutrition and Dietetics Vol. 22, No. 2, (April 2009).pp. 89–99.

Finch, Alan. "The provision of school meals since 1906: progress or a recipe for disaster?" History and Policy (January 14, 2019).

Ministry of Education, Cmd. 8244. (1951).

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Created: 10:10 PM 1/28/2023
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