Roundsman - Milkman, Coalman and Other Home-delivery Providers)

[Vivienne14]

This is marked as Small Heath and wonder if the road sign reads Waverley Road ? A lovely clear shot of the roundsmens' equipment, clothing and horse-pulled cart. The clothing looks clean and crisp as do the milk churns, so I suspect this photo was taken for a very specific purpose. Viv

 

[Covroad]

This is marked as Small Heath and wonder if the road sign reads Waverley Road ? A lovely clear shot of the roundsmens' equipment, clothing and horse-pulled cart. The clothing looks clean and crisp as do the milk churns, so I suspect this photo was taken for a very specific purpose. VivView attachment 179363

Hello,
My guess the picture is the Waverely Road / Tennyson Road junction adjacent Small Heath Park.
I have several books on the Small Heath area and the reference the park having “high picket fencing”
The attached google earth gives an up to date location of your original picture location.

 

[Vivienne14]

Thanks Covroad - a good observation about the high picket fencing. Makes sense that it's a park boundary and not housing. And the house decorative features confirm the position too. Viv.

 

[ChrisM]

Jack Milroy, a farmer (of Freers Farm, Woodgate), is on his daily milk round in Ridgacre Road, Quinton, delivering the product of his own herd. It's the 1940s or1950s. "Lady" is doing her job up front and on the trap there are crates of milk bottles and perhaps other items. Somewhere there on the platform is a churn and an associated metal vessel of a particular size: this is lowered into the urn to be filled with a precise quantity of milk (measured in gills, which is one quarter of a pint) and this is then dispensed to those housewives who prefer to use their own jugs rather than bottles. Perhaps it is cheaper like that or possibly they just like to follow the old ways. Sometimes they come to the trap to collect it and chat for a moment as they hand over their few pence; or Jack will go to their front door to save them the bother. And sometimes, if it's a Saturday or the school holidays, Jack's eight or ten-year-old daughter takes the tin up the garden path, pours the milk into the waiting jug and is rewarded with a penny or a sweet.

When Jack has finished his round and nears the farm, his dog Rex will run to greet him and Lady, jump up onto the trap and complete the journey there, happy in the return of his master. And then, all the day's farming work to do and preparation for tomorrow's round.

As they have waited for the friendly farmer to turn into their street that morning, how many housewives would have been dreaming of a retail cathedral and spot-lit shelves rammed with 1 or 2 or 4 litre cartons or plastic bottles, full of skimmed/semi-skimmed/full/organic/filtered/lactose-free/long-life/soya/flavoured? Not too many, I imagine.

Chris

 

[PYork]

My GG grandfather and his son were both Milk Deliverers in Birmingham late 1880's-1939. I have been trying to determine if there was a registry for milk deliverers and what dairy they could have worked for. They lived in Aston and Ladywood.

 

[PYork]

Jack Milroy, a farmer (of Freers Farm, Woodgate), is on his daily milk round in Ridgacre Road, Quinton, delivering the product of his own herd.

Freers Farm,
What do you know about it?? My G Grandfather had a close friend Joe Freer and his wife Mary Ann. Mary Ann and Joe took my grandmother in after her mother died and raised her. Long family history. I wonder if Freers Farm is connected???

 

[ChrisM]

Jack Milroy took over the vacant tenancy of the farm in the late 1930s from Birmingham Corporation and farmed it until all the land was developed for housing much later, in the postwar years. My partner spent her childhood there but unfortunately I know nothing of its earlier history.

Chris