Ackworth School - A Quaker School for those "not in affluence".

Food and Drink.

1799.

Breakfast: Milk porridge poured on bread.

Dinner: 

First Day - Boiled sweet Puddings with Currants. Sometimes Apple Pies, and in Summer occasionally other Fruit Pies or Cheesecakes.
Second Day - Beef or Mutton, dressed by steam, (sometimes a little Pork) with Turnips, Carrots, Greens, or Potatoes, and Bread, no Butter. Roast Meat may be substituted occasionally, but not often.
Third Day - Boiled Suet Puddings, with Sweet Sauce.
Fourth Day - Meat Soup. In Summer this Dinner may be occasionally changed for Bacon, with Beans, Pease, Lettuces, Roots or Greens, and Bread, no Butter.
Fifth Day - Baked batter Puddings, with Sweet Sauce (sometimes baked Rice Puddings), if Milk can be spared, if not, boiled Rice Puddings, with a few Eggs.
Sixth Day - Beef or Mutton, dressed by Steam, with Potatoes, Greens, or other Vegetables, and Bread, no Butter.
Seventh Day - Meat Soup.

Beer and water for drink; except First Days, then to have beer at supper.

Supper: Bread and cheese and beer on 1st days. Butter instead of cheese when butter is plentiful. All the rest of the week Milk and Bread. Two ounces of cheese or one ounce of butter is considered a proper allowance for each child: the butter to be spread on the bred for them.

'The children ate their dinner from wooden platters, skilfully stopping up the cracks with the stickier fragments of their food, and drank their beer from tin mugs or from quart cans shared between a group.'

1838 - 'At about this time another alteration was proposed by the County Committee and accepted under protest by the London Committee; it was suggested that the use of beer as a table drink for the children should be discontinued...the actual date on which the beer was finally discountinued is uncertain.' - Ackworth School - Elfrida Vipont.

Page updated 8th September, 2015.