Horse Meat Dealers

[MrBarnett]

Harrison, Barber had the contract to dispose of Pickford’s redundant horses. The manager of Pickford’s Horse Department was on HB’s board.

One of Charles Lechmere’s sons, a carman who carried cat’s meat, lived for a while in tiny Winthrop Street, a few doors away from HB’s yard in a house that in the past had housed HB’s workers.

Add that to the cooked horseflesh carts standing outside Lechmere’s workplace, the location of the 1876 accident a few streets away from the ‘chief seat of the London horse slaughterers’ (Harrison, Barber’s head office and three yards) in Islington, and Ma Lechmere’s cat’s meat activities and the overwhelming likelihood is that Charles Lechmere carried cooked horseflesh for Harrison, Barber.

[MrBarnett]

Knackers did not give away bones to their customers. Selling a horse carcase with its bones in place would have been throwing away a valuable commodity - valuable to the knacker, who would have processed the bones into oils and fertiliser, but of no use at all to a cat’s meat man/woman running a small shop in a back street.

The boiling of horse flesh was a ‘nuisance’ trade that was heavily regulated and was the main reason that Harrison, Barber’s handful of yards had a monopoly on the activity in London.

The situation was very different outside of the Metropolis and you can find many press reports of the ‘nuisances’ caused by small-scale knackers/bone boilers in the provincial press. But for some reason, post 1874, no such nuisances are reported on in London other than those caused by Harrison, Barber and its constituent firms. The reason for that is quite obvious. There were no small-scale horse butchers in the Capital.

But there were plenty of people who carved up pieces of boneless cooked horse flesh to sell as pet food. They didn’t need ‘fined toothed’ saws to do that and they didn’t learn the skill of jointing carcasses.

[MrBarnett]

I have seen references to wagons loaded with cooked provincial horse meat standing outside Liverpool Street Station - next door to Broad Street Station interestingly.

[MrBarnett]

Ma Lechmere ran a cat’s meat shop selling horse meat that she had obtained already boned and cooked from either Harrison, Barber or one of the smaller cat’s meat wholesalers who imported cooked horse meat from the provinces.

[MrBarnett]

In fairness to the clueless Mirror man, he didn’t have the advantage of being able to check out the entries on the 1891 census. If he had, the truth of the matter might have dawned on him.

The canny folk at the Census knew better, as they demonstrated when they amended Maria Forsdike’s (Ma Lechmere’s) occupation in 1891.

[MrBarnett]

Of course, the reporter could have saved his shoe leather with a bit of thought.

The 1895 Post Office Directory above lists 40+ Horse Meat Salesmen - including a Mrs Maria Forsdike of 57, St George Street. Common sense should have told the Mirror reporter that these businesses were not all selling or processing raw horse flesh. He need only have looked under C for ‘Cat’s Meat’ and finding no entries under that heading, have realised that CMM’s were advertised under the more dignified description of Horse Meat Salesmen.

[MrBarnett]

A very amusing illustrated article with the title “Horseflesh Meals for Londoners” appeared in the Daily Mirror on 21st January, 1904. It described the unsuccessful attempts of a reporter to obtain a horse meat steak in an upmarket restaurant or raw horseflesh from a back street horse meat dealer.

Having first failed to find a restaurant able or willing to serve him a steak Arc-de-Triomphe, he consulted a London trade directory and found a lengthy list of Horse Meat Salesmen therein:

“Once more there was an “embarrass de richesses,” for there are a column and a half of dealers in horse meat in London.

Dealers in horse meat do not carry on business in the main West End thoroughfares, and our reporter, now faint and starving, set out to find one in a back street.

He found one, but although almost overcome, he made a fresh start and tottered on to the next address for the dealer in horse flesh proved to be nothing more than a ‘cat’s meat man’.

Luckily it was not far, but there also there were no succulent looking joints, no clean butcher’s counter, but only another ‘cat’s meat shop’ with a crowd of anxious cats sniffing round the door.

It was too late to go farther, and our reporter went in and learned that A DEALER IN HORSEMEAT AND A ‘CAT’S MEAT MAN’ are one and the same thing.

“Never heard tell of anyone eating ‘oss. No not in thirty years,” said the proud owner, who was slicing up a large chunk of brown meat and fixing it on little wooden skewers.

“I reckon it’s not good for anything but cats and dogs. You see, an ‘oss ain’t got no gall, and gall’s what keeps the blood good.”

“Beside’s an ‘oss ain’t got no brain.”

“Tuppence ‘apenny a pound we sells it at and all ready cooked too. That’s cheap enough.

Our reporter’s only excuse was that he was really very hungry!

But what becomes of the eighty tons of horseflesh which is sold every week in London? Surely it is not all eaten by cats and dogs.”