ABSTRACT

In this ambitious book Christian Petersen has taken a central topic in economic and social history and given it a new sweep and coherence. As the Lord’s Prayer suggests, securing an adequate supply of bread was a matter of over-riding concern to everyone until very recently. Bread was always by far the largest single item in the budgets of the poor, but bread could be made from many grains - wheat, rye, barley etc. Christian Petersen describes how in the later eighteenth century the process of replacing other cereals by wheat in bread making was completed throughout Britain. He provides a continuous series of estimates of bread consumption per caput, of bread prices (and, consequently, used in conjunction with population data, of total national expenditure on bread), and of wheat output and net imports. The implications of the changes in techniques of milling and baking that occurred are analysed, and the organisation of the baking and retailing of bread is described. Bread was so central to the economy of individual households and to the national economy as a whole that this book represents a major contribution to the history of the British economy and of British society in the period 1770-1870.

chapter |3 pages

Introduction

chapter 1|11 pages

The Bread Question

chapter 2|29 pages

The Wheat Loaf

chapter 3|53 pages

Milling and Baking

chapter 4|28 pages

The Assize of Bread

chapter 5|25 pages

Consumers and Consumption

chapter 6|32 pages

Wheat Supply

chapter 7|33 pages

Measuring Wheat Consumption

chapter 8|22 pages

Value

chapter |2 pages

Conclusion

chapter 1|2 pages

Food Expenditure

chapter 2|2 pages

Bread Expenditure

chapter 3|3 pages

Wheat Bread Types

chapter 4|2 pages

Sedentary versus Active Occupations

chapter 5|2 pages

Qualities of Wheat

chapter 6|15 pages

Consumption of Various Groups

chapter 8|4 pages

Marginal Products

chapter 9|1 pages

Illustration of the ‘Transfer Effect’

chapter 10|5 pages

Wheat Prices and the End-price Indicator

chapter 11|8 pages

Sources of Data on Bread Prices

chapter 12|23 pages

Calculation of Bread Value: 1771-1870

chapter 13|3 pages

Estimated Other-bread Eating Populations

chapter 14|7 pages

Other Bread: Estimates of Volume and Value