The world was a very different place in 1914, when World War One erupted. While 8.7 million British troops experienced the horrors of conflict on the Western Front, civilians back home in Britain carried on with life as best they could.
Without the benefits of modern communication, the information filtering back to people on the Homefront was sparse and slow. Across the UK, everyone tried to retain a sense of normality, while facing challenges of their own, most notably severe food shortages.
Highstreet shops were vastly different from those of the 21st century, as there were no supermarkets or shopping centres. Individual traders did their best to meet consumer demands but the cost of food more than doubled during the war years due to scarcities.
Lots of food was transported to feed the troops fighting in the war, but fewer edibles were arriving in Britain, as the supply ships were continually attacked by German submarines. Staples, such as bread, meat, fruit and vegetables, were hard to find and there were always long queues outside the shops.
In 1918, the government finally brought in rationing, aimed at making the system fairer, no matter how much money people had.
Were there chain stores in 1914?
Unlike today, when there are thousands of chain stores all over the UK, most retailers in 1914 were small independent traders. In 2022, there are more than 14,000 food chain stores all over Britain, including supermarkets and convenience stores such as 3,443 branches of Tesco; 2,500 Co-op stores; 1,430 Sainsbury’s; 1,030 Iceland outlets; 960 branches of Aldi; 852 M&S; 760 Lidl; and 603 Asda supermarkets, with hundreds more smaller chains and discount stores.
Numerous department stores opened during the 19th and early 20th centuries, mainly in major cities such as London, where stores such as Selfridge’s, Harrods and John Lewis were founded. These stores were mainly for the affluent upper and middle classes.
At the start of World War One, 108 years ago, there were very few chain stores. There were no supermarkets fighting price wars and no “buy one get one free”. For the ordinary working classes, who were on a tight budget, shopping meant spending money at small local stores for basic foods to feed their family.
Butchers
Butchers’ shops were found everywhere. Some were general meat shops, while others sold only a particular type, such as pork. Many were individual retailers, selling meat direct from the farm.
However, one chain of butchers’ shops, JH Dewhurst Ltd, founded in Liverpool in 1897, expanded to many British highstreets in the early 20th century. They were unusual because they imported meat from Argentina, as well as selling local meat. The company also bought Eastman and James Nelson, a Bristol chain with 60 butchers’ shops in the early 20th century.
The war damaged business and even by the end of 1914, Dewhurst’s annual report declared the higher costs of meat had led to the closure of “a good many retail shops” nationwide.
Traditional window displays featured a lot of raw meat, including whole animal carcasses and fowl hung by the neck. It was very different from today’s sanitised counters, where the meat is already cut up and neatly packaged.
Bakers
Bread was in short supply during WWI, creating serious problems, because it was the staple diet of the poor. A Food Department was established at the Board of Trade in November 1916, while a new Ministry of Food Control was also founded to try and alleviate the shortages.
The problem was particularly serious because Brits ate more white bread than wholemeal, which used more flour. The wheat used for bread was imported from the US before the war. A new Wheat Commission was set up to buy cereals, allocate grain to corn merchants and millers, restrict bakeries’ ingredients for cake and confectionery and ration cereals for livestock feed.
Bakers’ shop windows displayed whatever bread they had been able to bake. It wasn’t wrapped like you would expect to find in today’s supermarkets. Some British bakers followed a practice that began in France, putting gummed paper on their shop windows to protect their wares from a bomb strike. Flying glass would have ruined the loose bread and no-one could risk it going to waste.
Fishmongers
Wet fish shops were commonplace in the early 20th century. Coastal fishmongers bought the local catch every day. For inland fishmongers, the fish was bought up from the traditional fishing ports along the coast. The shop window would be full of trays of raw fish, complete with the heads and eyes.
Every available inch of window display space was filled with raw fish. They were hung up individually on hooks above and around the main display counter. Some fishmongers even hung their wares outside their shop – something that’s hard to imagine today, considering the lack of refrigeration.
Many shopkeepers lived in rooms above or behind the shop front during this era. One can only imagine the aroma!
Wartime cookbooks substituted fish in dishes where meat was normally used. One recipe described how to make fish sausages using cooked fish, breadcrumbs and rice.
Dairy produce
Many dairies carried out the retail side of their business from a shop at the front of their dairy premises. There would be a stable for the delivery horses at the rear, a place to hand-churn butter and cheese within the building and the retail area at the front. One of the main dairy companies during WWI, Express Dairy of Hampstead, had this set-up.
Cheese and butter were in short supply during World War One. Cheese was one of the first foods to be rationed in 1918. Women had to be inventive in the kitchen and cook recommended meals from wartime cookbooks. One meal was imaginatively called “potted cheese”. It was literally just the crumbs of cheese left over on the packaging, mixed with a liberal quantity of mustard and served on toast.
Grocers and greengrocers
Grocers’ shops sold a bit of everything and were the forerunners of today’s convenience stores. Their window displays would be packed with just about everything they could squeeze in.
The scales were behind the counter and the customers received a personal service, with the grocer weighing out their produce. There was no self-service in those days. Horse-drawn delivery carts would have been parked up in the road outside.
Greengrocers selling fresh fruit and vegetables played an important role during the war. A typical early greengrocer’s shop had all the fresh produce on display in the window and even outside on a table in the street.
Panic-buying at grocery shops and stockpiling was widely reported when war broke out. The government asked people to grow their own vegetables to help the war effort. Even people with tiny back gardens grew veg, and public parks became allotments.
What effect did rationing have?
Following Britain’s official declaration of war on 4th August 1914, retail food prices went up. The Grocer magazine reported that the government must limit “profiteering and panic”.
However, rationing wasn’t introduced until July 1918, when everyone had to register with a local butcher and grocer in order to get their weekly rations of food. The aim was to make sure everyone got enough food, even the poor. Everyone was given a ration book with coupons allowing them to buy specific amounts of meat, sugar, flour, milk and butter.
Richer families knew for the first time what it was like to be hungry, while many of the poorest people found they ate better during the war than before it started. After the war ended in November 1918, meat was rationed until 1919. All rationing finally ended in 1920.
While most shopkeepers were never wealthy, the acceptable standard of living they enjoyed before the war was deeply affected by consumers’ lack of spending power. Many were significantly worse off after the war, and it took a long time for small businesses to recover.
Commercial Aluminium Shopfronts will be observing the two-minute silence at 11 am on Remembrance Sunday, 13th November, when people all over the world will pay their respects to those who died in the line of duty in conflict. We will remember them.