Description

[004232] [Adulteration of Bread] The Baker’s Defeat. Loughborough: [Alpheus] Buck. First Edition. Folio. Unbound. Ephemera. Good+. Single sided printed broadside, approximately 135mm x 310mm in size, n.d. c1815?

Occasional spot of foxing, slightly worn to edges, a couple of creases from old folds, but generally fairly bright and clean

The printer was Alpheus Buck, who is not listed in the BBTI

The adulteration of bread was common, even after the 1757 Making of Bread Act, which was introduced after a report accused bakers of using lime, alum, chalk, plaster, and even powdered bones to add weight and keep bread white. Vogler notes that the medical journal The Lancet, which campaigned against adulterants, “found that every single loaf the report’s author bought at random in London contained alum. The millers and bakers responded by denying that alum was toxic, but Eliza Acton drily pointed out that, ‘as their education generally does not qualify them to form an opinion worthy of respect upon the subject, it is unwise of them to make such an assertion'” (Vogler, Scoff – A History of Food and Class in Britain, pages 337-8)