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Foreward
This is a summary of our
research into dairying businesses in Darlaston
Green, South Staffordshire, at the start of the 20th
century. Originally this was a project related to my
grandparents, Thomas and Florence Smalls’ dairying
business at No. 90 The Green, and my mother Kathleen
Mary Small’s story about it.
This then developed into
investigating all the dairying operations in The
Green at the time. We also found that some of the
buildings which we were looking at had avoided
demolition in the 1970s and as such are of interest
in their own right. This is still a work in progress
as there is still investigative work to do regarding
the later demise of these businesses, the last of
which closed in 1949.
Peter J. Carter 01/8/2019
pcarter@kilaguni.co.uk
On the back of the Alan Godfrey
Willenhall and Darlaston Green Old OS map for 1903
we read in the historical notes by Catherine Yates:
“Gradually farming became a marginalised activity as
mining and metalworking rose in prominence and by
the publication of the first ordnance survey map of
1885 only Rough Hay Farm survived in the interstices
between Willenhall and Darlaston. In 1901 the farm
had succumbed to development pressure and ‘white
house’, as the farm had become known, had the
Criterion Stamping Works in its fold yard rather
than animals.“ Rough Hay Farm can be clearly seen on
the 1885 OS Map alongside the Bilston to Willenhall
Road..
With the demise of local farms,
and prior to the advent of the large dairies
supplying bottled pasteurised and sterilised milk in
the 1920s, milk was supplied fresh from the cow to
the local community by small urban dairying
businesses. These would be based on a small number
of cows which could be herded to pasture on nearby
open land, and also fed on bought-in animal feed
such as mangolds and hay. Another source of animal
feed was spent grain from breweries of which there
were quite a few in the area. The pasture in
Darlaston was mainly on waste land from closed down
ironworks such as Addenbrooke's and The Darlaston
Steel & Iron Company (Mills & Bills), or old
coalmining projects. Frequently the dairyman would
have a job in industry, relying on his family to
help with the day to day running of what today might
be called a micro urban farm. With no refrigeration
or bottling facilities, the fresh “loose” milk had
to be delivered quickly to the local customers.
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