WITH the free school meals debate raging, we’re looking back to when Bradford was the first city in the country to introduce council-funded school dinners.
The first servings were on October 28, 1907 at Green Lane School, Manningham. Soon thousands of children were being fed across the city.
Youngsters awaiting their school dinner
These remarkable photographs, taken in Bradford in 1908, were sent to us by local historian Andrew Bolt.
The images, from The Sphere, an illustrated newspaper which ran from 1900 to 1964, show kitchen staff cutting thousands of slices of bread, giant boilers and ovens used to prepare school dinners, and an enormous potato machine, in which nearly a sack of potatoes was peeled and cleaned in one operation. The meals were delivered in specially-made zinc boxes, keeping the food hot for hours.
A regular second course was cornflour and milk which, when set, became blancmange
Huge boilers used to prepare the meals
The food was delivered in specially built containers
The potato machine
The image below shows children being weighed; part of a process exploring the value of school meals.
Standing on the weighing scales
Says The Sphere: “The tests proved to their entire satisfaction not only the benefit but the necessity for such feeding if an intelligent and healthy growth is to be expected.”
The children on the left had just begun school meals, while the ones on the right had been fed at school for some time
School dinners were delivered in motor wagons
Waiting for school dinners
Bradford was a world pioneer in in council-funded school meals
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