Tag Archives: 1922

Crusoe Farm Dairy

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Clip from undated photo on Merton Memories, reference Mit_​Work_​Industry_​15-1, copyright London Borough of Merton.

From the Hartlepool Northern Daily Mail – Wednesday 24th May 1922, via the British Newspaper Archives.

Romance of a Dairy.

A descendant of Capt. Cook, the explorer, and the oldest inhabitant of Mitcham, Mrs Taylor, aged 96, has died in the house in which she established a one-cow dairy 55 years ago. Mrs Taylor named her dairy “Crusoe Farm Dairy.” There is a local tradition that Daniel Defoe once lived at Tooting Hall, close by.

In a few years Mrs Taylor built up one of the largest milk businesses in South London. It is still carried on under the same name. Up to last Christmas Mrs Taylor was active and in full possession her faculties.

This OS map from 1895 shows Crusoe Farm and Tooting Hall.

1895 OS map

The 1911 census shows Elizabeth Taylor, aged 84, widowed, address: Crusoe Farm, Arnold Road Tooting Junction, Mitcham. She was born in Modbury, Devon and was married 41 years and had 5 children, of which 3 were still alive in 1911. Only one other occupant is shown, her son John Henry Taylor, 52, carpenter.

Maps are reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland.

Mitcham Council gained more control over milk from 1922

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From the Mitcham Urban District Council minutes, volume VIII, 1922-23, pages 195-6, meeting of the Public Health and Burials Committee, on 12 September 1922:

11. MILK AND DAIRIES (AMENDMENT) Act, 1922

The Clerk submitted the following report re the Milk and Dairies (Amendment) Act, 1922:

To the Chairman and Members of the Public Health Committee, Mrs. Hallowes and Gentlemen:

MILK AND DAIRIES (AMENDMENT) ACT, 1922.

The provisions of the above Act came into operation on the 1st September 1922, the Act being passed in order to strengthen the hands of Local Authorities in their efforts to protect the milk supply from contamination. Some of the sections of the Act refer to the adulteration of milk and the regulations as to imported milk, the administration of which are in the hands of the inspectors appointed by the County Council and with which the District Council are not primarily concerned.

The District Council are, however, directly concerned with the
administration of the Dairies, Cowsheds and Milkshops Order of 1885, which Order is amended by Section 2 of the new Act.

The Order in question requires the Council to keep a register of persons carrying on in the trade of cowkeepers, dairymen or purveyors of milk, and the Order gives gives the Council no power to refuse to register any person or remove him from the register. The Act of 1922 empowers the Local Authority to refuse to enter any person on the register or remove him from the register if satisfied that the public health is likely to be endangered by any act or default in relation in quality, storage or distribution of milk, provision being made
to remove the name of any person from the register and for appeal against the proposed removal.

I suggest that applications for registration should in future be presented to the Public Health Committee, accompanied by a recommendation from the Sanitary Inspector as to the advisability or otherwise of acceding to the application.

Yours obediently,
STEPHEN CHART,
Clerk to the Council.

It was Resolved, That the Report be received and the recommendation therein adopted.

Links
Registration of Dairies and Milk Shops in 1917
1934 Milk Licences

Minutes of meetings held by the Mitcham Urban District Council are available on request from the Merton Heritage and Local Studies Centre at Morden Library.