However, to my mind these opinions of station refreshment
rooms are problematic as they all came from before 1870. Indeed, in the Victorianist post I highlighted this
fact and postulated that because I was unaware of criticism of refreshment
rooms after 1870 it implied that ‘an improvement in their quality in the later
railway industry and…an increasing professionalism in the services that the
companies’ provided.’[5] I based this assumption on the fact that many railways
began to employ professional refreshment room contractors after 1870. Indeed, Messrs Spiers and Pond were contracted to run refreshment rooms for
numerous railway companies including the Metropolitan, South Eastern, London,
Chatham and Dover and London and South Western Railways. Thus, by 1925 they controlled
over 200 rooms.[6]
Yet, I was still making a massive assumption that
refreshment rooms actually improved. Consequently, I began searching after 1870 for
any comment on their quality. My findings showed that contrary to my initial
theory, refreshment rooms continued to be complained about.
Unsurprisingly, food and drink at refreshment rooms
was criticised frequently. When in 1900 Mr E. Thompson Smith of the
Colchester Brewing Company applied for an alcohol licence for a proposed hotel
opposite the Great Eastern Railway’s Station at Thorpe, he suggested the
refreshment room provided ‘a ginger biscuit and an antiquated sausage roll.’[7]
In another case, a retired detective in 1887 recalled ‘getting a bad egg and some wasby
coffee.’[8] In 1894 the London and North Western Railway was fined 20 shillings
and costs for selling milk at a refreshment room that was constituted of twenty per cent
cream.[9] In 1900 the magazine Outlook commented
on the ‘stone cold ginger beer’ and stewed tea.[10] Lastly, ‘A DAILY TRAVELLER’
in 1884 stated that the only thing of quality that could be found in refreshment rooms were
‘beer and spirits.’ To his mind;
‘the coffee is made of essence, which is poured into the
cup by guess and then a plash of water added carelessly, sometimes making the
cup run over, and without its having ascertained if the water is boiling. The
tea is kept in a sort of concentrated decoction, and served in the same
careless way.’ [11]
Jokes were also found in this period, such as this from 1892:
Traveller: “My friend, there’s no meat in this sandwich”
Waitress: “No?”
Traveller: “Don’t you think you’d better give that pack
another shuffle and let me draw again?”[12]
In addition to the food, the quality of the environments within refreshment
rooms were frequently referred to. At the Highland Railway’s half-yearly meeting
of shareholders in 1894, a Mr Dingwall drew attention to the lack of
cleanliness in the company’s rooms.[13] In 1899 a meal at a Masonic Bazaar was
referred to as possibly becoming ‘a miserable fiasco…a sort of railway
refreshment room, if it had been lacking the grace, sweetness and charm which
Madames Mace, Rowell and Hunston lent to it.’[14] Lastly, in 1898 in West
Kerrier, a Superintendent Beare (who presumably was a policeman) was informed
at the local sessions that ‘the refreshment at Helston Railway Station had not
been properly conducted.’[15]
Finally, one frequent complaint was refreshment room prices.
In 1886, a ‘John Fletcher Little’ wrote to the Leeds Mercury about the ‘exorbitant prices at present charged in the
third class refreshment rooms for such beverages as milk, tea, coffee &c.’
For example, ‘Milk costs twopence a glass, whilst it is sold in the shops and
coffee taverns at a penny’ and tea and coffee was ‘charged for at a rate of
threepence,’ whereas elsewhere it was also a penny.[16] In 1900, Outlook
commented on the ginger beer at refreshment rooms which ‘at some stations, for
instance, fourpence a bottle is charged for precisely the same article that a
cyclist in the country procures for a penny.’[17] Lastly, when referring to the
low profit margins of coffee taverns, one reporter enquired as to whether
‘refreshment room prices’ could be charged.[18]
Therefore, it can be considered that refreshment rooms continued
to be criticised into the late nineteenth century and had a reputation for providing poor quality and expensive food, and having uninviting environments.
Nevertheless, occasional references to good quality
services can found. In 1888 Messrs Browning and Wesley, refreshment room contractors
at Paddington and Chester stations, brought a libel case against Ernest Solly,
who, whilst in the Chester Station room, claimed the meat in his sausage roll
was bad. After complaining to the staff, Solly left for his train to Liverpool.
On arrival in Liverpool he telegrammed the following:- ‘Exchange Liverpool
Office, To inspector of Nuisances, Chester. Please inspect sausage rolls,
refreshment rooms, station, bad meat; will write tonight. Dr Solly.’ He then
proceeded to write to the Town Clerk’s office in Birkenhead about the affair. On inspection by Chester Town Council, Messrs Browning and Wesley were
exonerated and their materials were described as being of the ‘very best
quality.’ Sonny was ordered to pay a farthing in damages.
Interestingly, when Dr Solly
complained to the refreshment room staff of the meat in his roll, he asked whether the place ‘belonged to
Speirs and Pond.’ [19] Indeed, in the period rooms managed by Spiers and Pond
were generally thought of as ‘diamonds in the rough.’ Therefore, in the next post I
will discuss this market leading company.
------
[1] All Year Round,
December 1867, p.60
[2] Trollope, Anthony, He Knew He Was Right, (London, 1869), p.351
[3] Simmons, Jack, The Victorian Railway, (London, 1991)
p.354
[4] Richards, Jeffrey and MacKenzie, John M., The Railway Station: A Social History,
(Oxford, 1988), p.291
[6] Biddle, George, ‘Refreshment Rooms,’ The Oxford
Companion to British Railway History, (London, 1997), p.417
[7] The Essex
County Standard West Suffolk Gazette, and Eastern Counties Advertiser,
Friday, September 29, 1900
[8] The Ipswich
Journal, Friday, October 21, 1887; Issue 8872
[9] The
Huddersfield Chronicle and West Yorkshire Advertiser, Saturday, June 02,
1894
[10] Outlook, Vol.6,
No.133 (1900, 18 August), p.72
[11] Birmingham
Daily Post, Tuesday, February 12, 1884
[12] Leicester
Chronicle and the Leicestershire Mercury, Saturday, February 13, 1892
[13] Glasgow Herald,
Thursday, April 26, 1894
[14] Jackson's
Oxford Journal, Saturday, April 22, 1899
[15] The Royal
Cornwall Gazette Falmouth Packet, Cornish Weekly News, & General Advertiser,
Thursday, September 08, 1898, pg. 3;
[16] The Leeds
Mercury, Friday, December 31, 1886
[17] Outlook, Vol.6,
No.133 (1900, 18 August), p.72
[18] Hampshire
Telegraph and Sussex Chronicle etc, Wednesday, August 29, 1877;
[19] Liverpool
Mercury etc. Saturday, July 28, 1888
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