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

 

[Brian s]

Hi

In the 50s there was a Co Op dairy on Kingstanding Road that used horse drawn vehicles ... Farther up the road was a Midland Counties Dairy that used electric milk floats. It had snowed quite heavily and the Midland Counties electric vehicls .struggled in the condidtions. Meawhile the Co Op horse drawn vehicles with studs scewed into the shoes or sacks tied round the horses feet coped with the condition. All the rivalary between the two dairies was put to one side and after the Co Op rounds were finished. The horse drawn vehicles went out again delivering the Midland Counties milk that the electric milk floats couldn't deliver.

At that time the customer always came first.

Brian

 

[Brian s]

Hi

As an addition to the above in the 40 I was living in Brougham St Lozells/Hockley and all the deliveries were horse drawn. Scrivans the bakers, Purity Bread another bakers, the milk man who's horse knew the round the milkman would load a little crate up with 12 bottle and off he would go delivering to the houses collecting the empties the horse knew exactly where and when to stop. Kings the coal man and don't forget the rag and bone man shouting or blowing a bugle. Even the railways had horse drawn vehicles. I only ever saw the knife sharpener once. he had a bike with a stand on that lifted his back wheel off the ground and as he peddled the bike there was a grindstone that turned and people would bring their knives out for sharpening. the man with a bucket and hand cart with a ladder on that went round cleaning the gas street lighting and winding the clockwork time switch up. As kids we would climb the lamp post put our arms up through the bottom of the light and bend the pilot light away from the mantles it would light with a very satisfying loud pop. At going home time from the factories people drove or rode anything, who remembers the little ex para Corgi folding motor bikes, and the men disabled in the war with their hand operated carriages. No health and safety if it snowed you would have two or three men stood on the back of a lorry loaded with salt and grit throwing it off the back to clear the road.


Brian