Family memories, from Fay Hampson

Grandad Hampson bakes some bread and wins a car...

Pictured is my grandma, Mary Hampson, of Hampson's Bakery in Charles Street, Wrexham. She is at the wheel of a Morris Cowley two door coupé, which my grandad had won in a baking competition held at Olympia, London. I believe this photograph was taken in London during the 1920s.

Bread-making competitions were encouraged by the authorities in the first decades of the 20th century and my grandad was always up for a challenge.

The aim was to improve the quality of bread, which had been widely adulterated during Victorian times. The industrial revolution brought a flood of people to the cities and towns of Britain looking for work in factories. Many lived in oven-less tenements and had to rely on commercially produced bread.

Unscrupulous manufacturers maximised their profits by adulterating their bread with cheap flour substitutes and the health of the nation suffered. Bread was still, after all, the staff of life.

Amongst other things added were alum, sawdust, plaster of Paris, bean flour and chalk. The aim was to make the loaves heavier and whiter, and to increase the volume of the loaves.

The aim of the bread baking competitions was to stop all this! There were, of course, many other people and organisations with the same aim.

I believe my grandad won many prizes in bake-offs. The trophy we loved when we were children was the Hovis clock which kept time in the dining room at Chester Road. Instead of numerals were the letters H.O.V.I.S.B.R.E.A.D. plus two symbols which I can't recall.

Alas it has disappeared, along with the Morris Cowley and the horse-drawn bread vans.

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