Aerated Bread Company
Encyclopedia
The Aerated Bread Company Ltd (Aërated Bread Company or A.B.C.) was founded in the United Kingdom (U.K.) in 1862 by Dr. John Dauglish. Its aim was to mass produce healthy, additive-free breads using a new bread leavening technology invented by the company's founder. Dauglish's system was a yeast
-free, carbonic acid gas (i.e., carbon dioxide
) method of bread making: "Nothing but flour, water, a little salt and gas—no sweat! It was liked by many." In addition to the bakery, the company was especially well-known for its many tea shops that operated from 1864.
The company ceased operation in the 1980s.
listed on the London Stock Exchange
(LSE). Creation as a corporation was part of the then growing mid to late 19th-century trend in Britain to satisfy the "English demand for their industrial concerns to be incorporated under their Individual Liability act", which was in stark contrast to the far smaller rate of incorporation in the United States and listings on the New York Stock Exchange
(NYSE). However, this British, Victorian-era
rate of incorporation and LSE listings would not have continued apace "if the majority of the companies floated on the London Stock Exchange had not realized the hopes indulged at their formation". Evidence of this is A.B.C. itself: Although certain failure was predicted, and its initial public offering
was poorly supported, its initial £1 shares
eventually rose to £
5 7s 8d
by 1890. By 1898, shares had more than doubled from their 1890 value and were trading at £12 per share and declaring a dividend
of 37½ percent. By 1899, A.B.C. shares had increased a further 16⅔ percent and were trading at £14 per share.
, dramatically reduce the need for physical contact with the dough on the part of the workers, and consequently introduce a greater level of cleanliness into the bread making process. Dauglish "aimed at the abolition of manual kneeding with its associated nastiness and dangers to cleanliness and health". Some years later, an 1878 issue of the scientific journal, Nature
, reported:
Such a system would also lend itself to a high degree of automation. This method thus leavens bread, without yeast, by forcing carbon dioxide into the dough under pressure. A patent for this revolutionary new method of bread making was granted in 1856.
In 1859, Dauglish presented a paper on his new method to the Royal Society of Arts
, for which he received a silver medal. "[F]rom this time the success of the ‘aërated’ bread was secured." Also, Dauglish's method received endorsements from various Victorian-era physicians and sanitarians helping to further cement the future success of his endeavour. "[A]erated bread is perfectly wholesome." Moreover, because it was considered a healthful bread, it was introduced into many hospitals.
In 1862, the Aerated Bread Company was set up to economically exploit Dauglish's newly patented method that injected carbonic acid gas (i.e., carbon dioxide) into the bread making process, eliminated yeast and other additives, and drastically reduced production time.
With the Dauglish technique, "all the destructive influence of fermentation is prevented". That is, "there is no chemical decomposition of the flour whatever, and therefore no loss of material, while the rising of the dough is just as effectively carried out" as with traditional dough fermentation. Nutritionally, the bread created under the Dauglish method contains "all the gluten and all the albuminous food of the wheat", each of which is diminished in quantity under traditional fermentation methods.
A further benefit of the process is that, unlike with the traditional fermentation method, additives like alum
never have to be added to slow the rate of fermentation, leading Richardson to term Aerated bread "additive-free". The 1878 issue of Nature reported that
However, the journal went on to say that aerated bread is not entirely additive free inasmuch as some minor, less objectionable additives are sometimes still introduced to the process:
The aeration method accrues to the bakery three production economies: material savings, time savings, and labour savings. As an illustration of the first of these economies, Dauglish estimated that, by eliminating the decomposition of the starches and gluten that occur from traditional fermentation (a loss equal to between three and six percent), this had a value in the middle of the 19th century of "£5,000,000 in the total quantity of bread made, annually, in the United Kingdom" (£ in current terms). The process is a highly automated one, and thus saves time and reduces labour costs. Whereas the traditional dough fermentation method required between eight and ten hours to ready a batch of dough for baking, the Dauglish method has dough ready for the ovens in "less than thirty minutes." Shortly, "after the two sacks of flour (weighing 560 pounds) are placed in the mixer, there are produced, tinned, and placed in the oven, four hundred two-pound loaves." And since the bread dough is ready for the ovens so quickly, the daily hours worked can be reduced, perhaps obviating the need for the night shifts that were so prevalent in the baking industry at the time. A health benefit to labour is that the workers "are relieved from a circumstance most destructive to their health, that of inhaling the flour dust in the process of kneading" since the Dauglish method, and the automation thereof, does not require the kneading of the dough by hand. Finally, the lack of most additives to enhance the fermentation process reduces the cost of factor inputs while also producing a virtually unadulterated
product.
The technology so reduced the cost of production, that it meant that A.B.C. could sell its product for less than its competitors, the traditional fermentation method bakers. The downward impact on prices of A.B.C. moving into a market could be felt almost immediately. For example, in 1866 Australia, A.B.C. had "not only benefited the public by selling its own bread at a cheaper rate than the bakers were selling, but it has led them [the bakers] to reduce their prices. Bakers who a fortnight ago were charging 6d. for the two-pound loaf, are now advertising it at 5d. or 5½d." This represented a drop in price of between 8⅓ percent and 16⅔ percent.
Competition from A.B.C. had more than just a price effect on the traditional fermentation bakers, who responded, in some instances, with unusual advertising efforts to retain market share. The traditional fermentation process produces alcohol within the dough. To counter the success of aerated bread in the market, traditional fermentation bakers began focussing on this in their advertising. To that end, placard advertisements were used—especially in the neighbourhood of the A.B.C. factory—urging people to "buy the bread with the gin
in it", at a time when gin was thought to have medicinal properties as it was made from juniper berries. The traditional fermentation bakers neglected to inform the readers of these placard adverts that virtually all of the alcohol dissipates in the extreme heat of the ovens. The journal, Nature, reports that traditional baking techniques of the time left only trace amounts of alcohol in the finished product, equal to an extremely small 0.25% per loaf. The author suggests that Dr. Richardson's great support of aerated bread at the expense of traditionally baked bread was "because it gave him an opportunity of having a fling at his old enemy, alcohol". In fact, Nature points out that the amount of alcohol per traditional, yeast loaf is so small that "a man who eats twenty quartern [i.e., four-pound] loaves has therein consumed an amount of alcohol which is commonly contained in one bottle of port!" Thus, the consumption of 80 pounds of such bread would be equivalent to the consumption of one bottle of 1870s port.
A.B.C.'s first bakery was in Islington
, London. In the late Victorian-era, the Dauglish method was considered the superior system by which to mass produce bread. In his memoir of the method, the eminent 19th-century physician and sanitarian, Sir Benjamin Ward Richardson, a later director of the company, wrote:
As early as 1863, A.B.C.'s method regarding their "pure aerated graham bread
" (i.e., whole wheat
) was receiving recommendations as far away as New York City:
The four-year effort expended by Dauglish in introducing his revolutionary bread-making system had a negative impact upon his health, forcing him to spend ever more time "taking the cures
" at various health resorts throughout Europe. In 1865, his health worsened while visiting Paris. He returned to the U.K. and died at Malvern
in early 1866 and is buried at Malvern Wells
.
Thirty years after Dauglish's death, his company was thriving. As a result of its market success derived from its revolutionary technology, A.B.C.'s shares were trading at 12 times their initial public offering price and, at its 1895 annual general meeting, it was stated by the presiding officer, Major John Bolton, that A.B.C. "had no reason to fear competition".
The Dauglish method survived its creator, and Dauglish's company survived him by well over a century, but his method has since been rendered obsolete in the U.K. by the adoption of mechanical, high-speed dough processes such as the Chorleywood Bread Process
(CBP), now responsible for 80 percent of U.K. bread production. Such newer "no time" methods permit the use of lower grade flours, resulting in a product of less nutritional value than breads made by earlier methods such as Dauglish's system.
A.B.C. tea shops, the fast-food outlets of their day. These grew from A.B.C. opening the U.K.'s first tearoom in 1864, two years after the company's founding. The first A.B.C. tea shop opened in the courtyard of London's Fenchurch Street Railway Station
. The idea for opening the tearoom is attributed to a London-based manageress of the Aerated Bread Company "who'd been serving gratis tea and snacks to customers of all classes, [and] got permission to put a commercial public tearoom on the premises." The motivation for the company acting upon the manageress's suggestion was "the fact that the sale of bread alone was not proving a dividend-earning proposition."
The tearooms were significant since they provided one of the first places where women of the Victorian era could take a meal — sans male escort — without risk to their reputations. In at least one instance, one could find a women's social club housed directly above an A.B.C. tea shop:
The reference to the female employees of the company not sharing in the company's profits was a very real concern at the time. It was even referred to as a "gross case of company inhumanity." At the 1895 annual general meeting of the company, Dr. Richardson proposed, and another doctor (also a director), Dr. Furnival, seconded, "giving the girls employed by the company some additional advantages." The physicians felt that if the company "did not give them one meal a day … they were a mean and shabby lot." The board chairman felt that the company had made great strides in that area: they were already giving the employees one meal a day, providing a hot dinner "at a nominal price," and "[n]ot a girl went into the company's service now who did not receive 10s a week."
However, the remunerative conditions of the employees remained a front-burner issue that came to a boil at the 1898 annual general meeting whereat
As safe havens for unescorted women of the Victorian era, the A.B.C. tea shops were recommended to delegates of the Congress of the International Council of Women
held in London the week ending 9 July 1899.
In 1908, the A.B.C. tea shops once again figured in women's issues of the Edwardian era. It was the custom of the day for women to wear corsets so tight that it gave the wearer waistlines of as little as 17 inches. This was referred to as "tight-lacing." In an instance that gained certain publicity, a waitress at an A.B.C. tea shop died as a result of tight-lacing. Her death "through tight-lacing … brought the subject of tight-lacing under discussion." As a direct result, corsetières dubbed the era "decidedly the days of the woman with medium waist — that all model gowns have medium waists, and that whereas a few seasons ago corsets were made for 17in, 18in, and 19in waists, 23in is now the average measurement for young women." Thus, this single death of an A.B.C. tea shop waitress from tight-lacing resulted directly in the "letting out" of the waistlines of women's gowns and their underlying corsets.
Success such as that of A.B.C.'s, often leads to litigators in search of "deep pockets." In 1919, a diner at an A.B.C. shop in Sydney, Australia, filed a claim against A.B.C. for £1,000 (£ in current terms) claiming that she had eaten a pie at A.B.C. that contained a mouse. The plaintiff was revealed to have filed a false claim and the court found for the defendant, A.B.C.:
At its peak in 1923, A.B.C. had 150 branch shops in London
and 250 tea shops and was second in terms of outlets only to J. Lyons and Co.
This proliferation led George Orwell
to view A.B.C.'s tea shops, and those of its competitors, as the
This "sinister strand in English catering" did not stop such luminaries as George Bernard Shaw
(1856–1950) from frequenting A.B.C.'s teashops. His diaries are replete with entries attesting to his being a habitué of the establishment at various of its London locations. One such entry is for 12 December 1888: "… to the Aerated Bread Shop opposite the Mansion House station and had some eggs and chocolate there." A later entry for 27 January 1891, has him taking tea "at the Aerated Bread Shop at the corner of Parliament Square." An entry from 4 January 1892, has Shaw holding a meeting of the Shelley Society's The Cenci
committee at the A.B.C. teashop at Rathbone Place. Among other A.B.C. locations at which Shaw dined were Charing Cross Station, Oxford Circus, Piccadilly Circus, and opposite St. Clement Danes Church.
Finally, an interesting linguistic
fact regarding the A.B.C. tea shops is that the cockney
in the era of the tea shops' heyday often referred to them as the "Arëated Bread Company" tea shops.
of Bread," Canadian-born Garfield Weston
. With this acquisition, the self-service A.B.C. tea shops would join the high-end, morning-coated service of Fortnum & Mason
, already in Weston's corporate empire. As one U.S. magazine of the day put it: "[T]he Piccadilly prince is about to marry the tearoom Cinderella
." Allied was expected to pay $
8.1 million for A.B.C. ($ million in current dollars
). At that time, Allied itself had a large share of the U.K. baked goods market. Allied's marketshare prior to acquiring A.B.C. was 10% of all U.K. bread production and the sale, per day, of 20 million biscuits (cookies in North America
). Allied's sales
the year prior were $154 million ($ million in current dollars) with profits
of $12.6 million ($ million in current dollars). Worldwide, companies under Weston's umbrella had sales of over $1 billion
in 1954 ($ billion in current dollars) and profits of over $40 million ($ million in current dollars). Weston had the golden touch when it came to creating and operating extremely profitable companies during the Great Depression
, the war
, and the economic slump that was Britain in the immediate postwar years.
With this acquisition, Allied would almost double its share of the U.K.'s bread market by the end of the decade.
Under the Allied banner, A.B.C. continued trading until the early 1980s when the name disappeared. For many years it had had a major bakery on the Regent's Canal
in Camden Town
, London. This closed in the 1980s when A.B.C. ceased operation and today is the site of a Sainsbury's store and Grand Union Walk Housing, both designed by prominent English architect, Sir Nicholas Grimshaw of Grimshaw Architects
.
Dauglish's method has since been rendered obsolete in the U.K. by the adoption of mechanical, high-speed dough processes such as the Chorleywood Bread Process
(CBP), now responsible for 80 percent of U.K. bread production. One should note that since the new "no time" methods — such as CBP — permit the use of lower grade flours, the resultant product is of less nutritional value than breads made by earlier methods such as Dauglish's aerated bread system.
Nowadays, the only traces of the Aerated Bread Company are faded signs above stores, such as 125 The Strand, now a supermarket.
entitled, The Old Man in the Corner
, by Baroness Orczy
, a "teahouse detective" named Bill Owen meets and discusses criminal cases with a young woman journalist, Miss Polly Burton, in an A.B.C. teashop. The teashops are first mentioned in "The Fenchurch Street Mystery."
These stories were also broadcast in 1998 and 2000 as radio plays on BBC Radio 4
as The Teahouse Detective.
"She would write him a letter and take it at once to his house. She bought paper and pencil at a bookstall, and entered an A.B.C. shop, where, by ordering a cup of coffee, she secured an empty table, and began at once to write..."
by Agatha Christie
, Tommy Beresford is held captive by a spy ring bent on crippling the British economy with a general strike. For the time that Tommy is a prisoner, he is not fed. Upon escaping, the first thing Tommy does is head to an A.B.C. teashop for sustenance.
Once satiated, Tommy and his partners in detection go on to foil the plans of the conspirators.
The Secret Adversary was adapted into a teleplay
and broadcast in 1983 by London Weekend Television
as part of that television network's Partners in Crime
series.
, Florinda walks the streets of London and ends up in an A.B.C. shop.
"Now Florinda wept, and spent the day wandering the streets [...] read love letters, propping them against the milk pot in the A.B.C. shop; detected glass in the sugar bowl; accused the waitress of wishing to poison her; declared that young men stared at her..."
and:
Yeast
Yeasts are eukaryotic micro-organisms classified in the kingdom Fungi, with 1,500 species currently described estimated to be only 1% of all fungal species. Most reproduce asexually by mitosis, and many do so by an asymmetric division process called budding...
-free, carbonic acid gas (i.e., carbon dioxide
Carbon dioxide
Carbon dioxide is a naturally occurring chemical compound composed of two oxygen atoms covalently bonded to a single carbon atom...
) method of bread making: "Nothing but flour, water, a little salt and gas—no sweat! It was liked by many." In addition to the bakery, the company was especially well-known for its many tea shops that operated from 1864.
The company ceased operation in the 1980s.
Founding
The Aerated Bread Company Ltd was founded in 1862 by Dr. John Dauglish (1824–1866), an "ingenious and earnest sanitarian as well as social reformer". The business was created as an incorporated companyIncorporation (business)
Incorporation is the forming of a new corporation . The corporation may be a business, a non-profit organisation, sports club, or a government of a new city or town...
listed on the London Stock Exchange
London Stock Exchange
The London Stock Exchange is a stock exchange located in the City of London within the United Kingdom. , the Exchange had a market capitalisation of US$3.7495 trillion, making it the fourth-largest stock exchange in the world by this measurement...
(LSE). Creation as a corporation was part of the then growing mid to late 19th-century trend in Britain to satisfy the "English demand for their industrial concerns to be incorporated under their Individual Liability act", which was in stark contrast to the far smaller rate of incorporation in the United States and listings on the New York Stock Exchange
New York Stock Exchange
The New York Stock Exchange is a stock exchange located at 11 Wall Street in Lower Manhattan, New York City, USA. It is by far the world's largest stock exchange by market capitalization of its listed companies at 13.39 trillion as of Dec 2010...
(NYSE). However, this British, Victorian-era
Victorian era
The Victorian era of British history was the period of Queen Victoria's reign from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. It was a long period of peace, prosperity, refined sensibilities and national self-confidence...
rate of incorporation and LSE listings would not have continued apace "if the majority of the companies floated on the London Stock Exchange had not realized the hopes indulged at their formation". Evidence of this is A.B.C. itself: Although certain failure was predicted, and its initial public offering
Initial public offering
An initial public offering or stock market launch, is the first sale of stock by a private company to the public. It can be used by either small or large companies to raise expansion capital and become publicly traded enterprises...
was poorly supported, its initial £1 shares
Share (finance)
A joint stock company divides its capital into units of equal denomination. Each unit is called a share. These units are offered for sale to raise capital. This is termed as issuing shares. A person who buys share/shares of the company is called a shareholder, and by acquiring share or shares in...
eventually rose to £
Pound sterling
The pound sterling , commonly called the pound, is the official currency of the United Kingdom, its Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, British Antarctic Territory and Tristan da Cunha. It is subdivided into 100 pence...
5 7s 8d
Penny (British pre-decimal coin)
The penny of the Kingdom of Great Britain and later of the United Kingdom, was in circulation from the early 18th century until February 1971, Decimal Day....
by 1890. By 1898, shares had more than doubled from their 1890 value and were trading at £12 per share and declaring a dividend
Dividend
Dividends are payments made by a corporation to its shareholder members. It is the portion of corporate profits paid out to stockholders. When a corporation earns a profit or surplus, that money can be put to two uses: it can either be re-invested in the business , or it can be distributed to...
of 37½ percent. By 1899, A.B.C. shares had increased a further 16⅔ percent and were trading at £14 per share.
Technology
Dauglish earned his medical degree at Edinburgh. Having been thoroughly unimpressed by the Scottish bread of the day, he began to make his own, and to study the science associated with the process. When he applied his earlier studies in chemistry to the process of bread making, he determined that it would be possible to produce carbonic acid gas in bread without yeast. He established that if one could instead introduce carbon dioxide to the process—by dissolving it into solution in the water—this would eliminate the need for fermentationFermentation (food)
Fermentation in food processing typically is the conversion of carbohydrates to alcohols and carbon dioxide or organic acids using yeasts, bacteria, or a combination thereof, under anaerobic conditions. Fermentation in simple terms is the chemical conversion of sugars into ethanol...
, dramatically reduce the need for physical contact with the dough on the part of the workers, and consequently introduce a greater level of cleanliness into the bread making process. Dauglish "aimed at the abolition of manual kneeding with its associated nastiness and dangers to cleanliness and health". Some years later, an 1878 issue of the scientific journal, Nature
Nature (journal)
Nature, first published on 4 November 1869, is ranked the world's most cited interdisciplinary scientific journal by the Science Edition of the 2010 Journal Citation Reports...
, reported:
As to the perfect cleanliness of this mechanical process for making bread there can be no question; it is immeasurably superior to the barbarous and old, but as Dr. Richardson remarked, not “time-honoured system of kneading dough by the hands and feet of the workman.”
Such a system would also lend itself to a high degree of automation. This method thus leavens bread, without yeast, by forcing carbon dioxide into the dough under pressure. A patent for this revolutionary new method of bread making was granted in 1856.
In 1859, Dauglish presented a paper on his new method to the Royal Society of Arts
Royal Society of Arts
The Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufacturers and Commerce is a British multi-disciplinary institution, based in London. The name Royal Society of Arts is frequently used for brevity...
, for which he received a silver medal. "[F]rom this time the success of the ‘aërated’ bread was secured." Also, Dauglish's method received endorsements from various Victorian-era physicians and sanitarians helping to further cement the future success of his endeavour. "[A]erated bread is perfectly wholesome." Moreover, because it was considered a healthful bread, it was introduced into many hospitals.
In 1862, the Aerated Bread Company was set up to economically exploit Dauglish's newly patented method that injected carbonic acid gas (i.e., carbon dioxide) into the bread making process, eliminated yeast and other additives, and drastically reduced production time.
[Dauglish] made an arrangement by which he brought together, in a closed apparatus, the flour, out of which the dough was to be made, and water supersaturated with the carbonic acid gas. He incorporated the flour with the water and gas under pressure, and when the incorporation was complete, the mixture was drawn off, when it expanded into a spongy mass, and produced a dough perfect in character, and ready for the oven.By this simple method, he, so to speak, "set the sponge" without any of the cumbrous processes connected with fermentation.
With the Dauglish technique, "all the destructive influence of fermentation is prevented". That is, "there is no chemical decomposition of the flour whatever, and therefore no loss of material, while the rising of the dough is just as effectively carried out" as with traditional dough fermentation. Nutritionally, the bread created under the Dauglish method contains "all the gluten and all the albuminous food of the wheat", each of which is diminished in quantity under traditional fermentation methods.
A further benefit of the process is that, unlike with the traditional fermentation method, additives like alum
Alum
Alum is both a specific chemical compound and a class of chemical compounds. The specific compound is the hydrated potassium aluminium sulfate with the formula KAl2.12H2O. The wider class of compounds known as alums have the related empirical formula, AB2.12H2O.-Chemical properties:Alums are...
never have to be added to slow the rate of fermentation, leading Richardson to term Aerated bread "additive-free". The 1878 issue of Nature reported that
The stream of pure water charged with carbonic acid gas vesiculates the dough, which has required neither alum, nor blue vitriol, nor lime-water, to check the irregular fermentation, and neutralise the sourness of mouldy or otherwise damaged or inferior flour.
However, the journal went on to say that aerated bread is not entirely additive free inasmuch as some minor, less objectionable additives are sometimes still introduced to the process:
[T]he adoption of the aerating process does not of itself necessarily exclude all adulterations of the bread: materials to whiten the loaf and to cause the retention of a larger percentage of water may still be used.
The aeration method accrues to the bakery three production economies: material savings, time savings, and labour savings. As an illustration of the first of these economies, Dauglish estimated that, by eliminating the decomposition of the starches and gluten that occur from traditional fermentation (a loss equal to between three and six percent), this had a value in the middle of the 19th century of "£5,000,000 in the total quantity of bread made, annually, in the United Kingdom" (£ in current terms). The process is a highly automated one, and thus saves time and reduces labour costs. Whereas the traditional dough fermentation method required between eight and ten hours to ready a batch of dough for baking, the Dauglish method has dough ready for the ovens in "less than thirty minutes." Shortly, "after the two sacks of flour (weighing 560 pounds) are placed in the mixer, there are produced, tinned, and placed in the oven, four hundred two-pound loaves." And since the bread dough is ready for the ovens so quickly, the daily hours worked can be reduced, perhaps obviating the need for the night shifts that were so prevalent in the baking industry at the time. A health benefit to labour is that the workers "are relieved from a circumstance most destructive to their health, that of inhaling the flour dust in the process of kneading" since the Dauglish method, and the automation thereof, does not require the kneading of the dough by hand. Finally, the lack of most additives to enhance the fermentation process reduces the cost of factor inputs while also producing a virtually unadulterated
Adulterant
An adulterant is a chemical substance which should not be contained within other substances for legal or other reasons. Adulterants may be intentionally added to more expensive substances to increase visible quantities and reduce manufacturing costs or for some other deceptive or malicious purpose...
product.
The technology so reduced the cost of production, that it meant that A.B.C. could sell its product for less than its competitors, the traditional fermentation method bakers. The downward impact on prices of A.B.C. moving into a market could be felt almost immediately. For example, in 1866 Australia, A.B.C. had "not only benefited the public by selling its own bread at a cheaper rate than the bakers were selling, but it has led them [the bakers] to reduce their prices. Bakers who a fortnight ago were charging 6d. for the two-pound loaf, are now advertising it at 5d. or 5½d." This represented a drop in price of between 8⅓ percent and 16⅔ percent.
Competition from A.B.C. had more than just a price effect on the traditional fermentation bakers, who responded, in some instances, with unusual advertising efforts to retain market share. The traditional fermentation process produces alcohol within the dough. To counter the success of aerated bread in the market, traditional fermentation bakers began focussing on this in their advertising. To that end, placard advertisements were used—especially in the neighbourhood of the A.B.C. factory—urging people to "buy the bread with the gin
Gin
Gin is a spirit which derives its predominant flavour from juniper berries . Although several different styles of gin have existed since its origins, it is broadly differentiated into two basic legal categories...
in it", at a time when gin was thought to have medicinal properties as it was made from juniper berries. The traditional fermentation bakers neglected to inform the readers of these placard adverts that virtually all of the alcohol dissipates in the extreme heat of the ovens. The journal, Nature, reports that traditional baking techniques of the time left only trace amounts of alcohol in the finished product, equal to an extremely small 0.25% per loaf. The author suggests that Dr. Richardson's great support of aerated bread at the expense of traditionally baked bread was "because it gave him an opportunity of having a fling at his old enemy, alcohol". In fact, Nature points out that the amount of alcohol per traditional, yeast loaf is so small that "a man who eats twenty quartern [i.e., four-pound] loaves has therein consumed an amount of alcohol which is commonly contained in one bottle of port!" Thus, the consumption of 80 pounds of such bread would be equivalent to the consumption of one bottle of 1870s port.
A.B.C.'s first bakery was in Islington
Islington
Islington is a neighbourhood in Greater London, England and forms the central district of the London Borough of Islington. It is a district of Inner London, spanning from Islington High Street to Highbury Fields, encompassing the area around the busy Upper Street...
, London. In the late Victorian-era, the Dauglish method was considered the superior system by which to mass produce bread. In his memoir of the method, the eminent 19th-century physician and sanitarian, Sir Benjamin Ward Richardson, a later director of the company, wrote:
I am convinced, from careful and prolonged observation, that the Dauglish method of bread manufacture is on the whole the best that has been discovered … [I]t is the cleanliest of all the processes known and followed; it calls for less drudgery, and, it is not unjust to say, less objectionable labour, from the employed in bread manufacture; it inflicts less arduous toil, and so lessens the rapid wearing out of the body, which is an unfortunate fate of many of those who are engaged in the manufacture of the staff of life; it supplies a purer article to those who depend, largely, upon the staff of life for their daily aliment. Lastly, it supplies … a better article, one which gives to the public the fullest food value that can be got out of the corn [i.e., wheat] from which the food is made, and which enables the manufacture of all kinds of flour or meal, white meal, mixed meal, whole meal, to be most completely and most easily produced.
As early as 1863, A.B.C.'s method regarding their "pure aerated graham bread
Graham flour
Graham flour is a type of whole wheat flour named after the American Presbyterian minister Rev. Sylvester Graham , an early advocate for dietary reform...
" (i.e., whole wheat
Whole wheat flour
Whole wheat flour is a powdery substance derived by grinding or mashing the wheat's whole grain. It is used in baking but typically added to other "white" flours to provide nutrients , texture, and body to the finished product....
) was receiving recommendations as far away as New York City:
We have been shown specimens of this new and excellent article of food, manufactured by the Aerated Bread Company … It far surpasses anything of the kind yet introduced. With their increased facilities for making bread, the Aerated Bread Company hope soon to introduce to the trade all the varieties necessary for household consumption.
The four-year effort expended by Dauglish in introducing his revolutionary bread-making system had a negative impact upon his health, forcing him to spend ever more time "taking the cures
Mineral spa
Mineral spas are resorts developed around naturally occurring mineral spring locales.- Origins :Spas grew in reputation in the nineteenth century on into the late middle-twentieth century for their purported healing or healthful benefits to those wealthy enough to partake of their waters...
" at various health resorts throughout Europe. In 1865, his health worsened while visiting Paris. He returned to the U.K. and died at Malvern
Malvern, Worcestershire
Malvern is a town and civil parish in Worcestershire, England, governed by Malvern Town Council. As of the 2001 census it has a population of 28,749, and includes the historical settlement and commercial centre of Great Malvern on the steep eastern flank of the Malvern Hills, and the former...
in early 1866 and is buried at Malvern Wells
Malvern Wells
Malvern Wells is a village and civil parish in the Malvern Hills District of Worcestershire, England. The parish of Malvern Wells, once known as South Malvern, was formed in 1894 from parts of the civil parishes of Hanley Castle, Welland, and the former parish of Great Malvern, and owes its...
.
Thirty years after Dauglish's death, his company was thriving. As a result of its market success derived from its revolutionary technology, A.B.C.'s shares were trading at 12 times their initial public offering price and, at its 1895 annual general meeting, it was stated by the presiding officer, Major John Bolton, that A.B.C. "had no reason to fear competition".
The Dauglish method survived its creator, and Dauglish's company survived him by well over a century, but his method has since been rendered obsolete in the U.K. by the adoption of mechanical, high-speed dough processes such as the Chorleywood Bread Process
Chorleywood Bread Process
The Chorleywood bread process is an industrial process used to lower the cost of bread production. The CBP, or no time method, was developed in 1961 by the British Baking Industries Research Association based at Chorleywood, and is now used to make 80% of the UK's bread...
(CBP), now responsible for 80 percent of U.K. bread production. Such newer "no time" methods permit the use of lower grade flours, resulting in a product of less nutritional value than breads made by earlier methods such as Dauglish's system.
Tea shops and early women's issues
A.B.C. was also revolutionary for its chain of self-serviceSelf-service
Self service is the practice of serving oneself, usually when purchasing items. Common examples include many gas stations, where the customer pumps their own gas rather than have an attendant do it...
A.B.C. tea shops, the fast-food outlets of their day. These grew from A.B.C. opening the U.K.'s first tearoom in 1864, two years after the company's founding. The first A.B.C. tea shop opened in the courtyard of London's Fenchurch Street Railway Station
Fenchurch Street railway station
Fenchurch Street railway station, also known as London Fenchurch Street, is a central London railway terminus in the south eastern corner of the City of London, England. The station is one of the smallest terminals in London in terms of platforms and one of the most intensively operated...
. The idea for opening the tearoom is attributed to a London-based manageress of the Aerated Bread Company "who'd been serving gratis tea and snacks to customers of all classes, [and] got permission to put a commercial public tearoom on the premises." The motivation for the company acting upon the manageress's suggestion was "the fact that the sale of bread alone was not proving a dividend-earning proposition."
The tearooms were significant since they provided one of the first places where women of the Victorian era could take a meal — sans male escort — without risk to their reputations. In at least one instance, one could find a women's social club housed directly above an A.B.C. tea shop:
The New Somerville Club, close to Oxford CircusOxford CircusOxford Circus is the area of London at the busy intersection of Regent Street and Oxford Street, in the West End. It is served by Oxford Circus tube station, which is directly beneath the junction itself.- History :...
… was located over an Aerated Bread Company's shop, and notwithstanding the complaint that the female employées [sic] of that company do not participate in the vast profits of the undertaking, the members of the Somerville get meals from the aerated bread shop sent up to the general room above, a bright and very prettily furnished apartment. Men are admitted to this club as guests.
The reference to the female employees of the company not sharing in the company's profits was a very real concern at the time. It was even referred to as a "gross case of company inhumanity." At the 1895 annual general meeting of the company, Dr. Richardson proposed, and another doctor (also a director), Dr. Furnival, seconded, "giving the girls employed by the company some additional advantages." The physicians felt that if the company "did not give them one meal a day … they were a mean and shabby lot." The board chairman felt that the company had made great strides in that area: they were already giving the employees one meal a day, providing a hot dinner "at a nominal price," and "[n]ot a girl went into the company's service now who did not receive 10s a week."
However, the remunerative conditions of the employees remained a front-burner issue that came to a boil at the 1898 annual general meeting whereat
The Aeræted Bread Company [sic] this year pays 37½ per cent, and the dividends for the previous four years were 30, 32, 34, and 35, and there were some bonuses besides. The £1 shares are quoted at [i.e., trading at] £12, and a shareholder was hissed down at the annual meeting and ruled out of order by the chairman because he hinted that the unique prosperity of the company should be accompanied by some rise in the wages for the girls in the shops. The wage for these girls is between 10s and 12s a week for their whole time. [Emphasis added.]
As safe havens for unescorted women of the Victorian era, the A.B.C. tea shops were recommended to delegates of the Congress of the International Council of Women
International Council of Women
The International Council of Women was the first women's organization to work across national boundaries for the common cause of advocating human rights for women. In March and April 1888, women leaders came together in Washington D.C...
held in London the week ending 9 July 1899.
In 1908, the A.B.C. tea shops once again figured in women's issues of the Edwardian era. It was the custom of the day for women to wear corsets so tight that it gave the wearer waistlines of as little as 17 inches. This was referred to as "tight-lacing." In an instance that gained certain publicity, a waitress at an A.B.C. tea shop died as a result of tight-lacing. Her death "through tight-lacing … brought the subject of tight-lacing under discussion." As a direct result, corsetières dubbed the era "decidedly the days of the woman with medium waist — that all model gowns have medium waists, and that whereas a few seasons ago corsets were made for 17in, 18in, and 19in waists, 23in is now the average measurement for young women." Thus, this single death of an A.B.C. tea shop waitress from tight-lacing resulted directly in the "letting out" of the waistlines of women's gowns and their underlying corsets.
Success such as that of A.B.C.'s, often leads to litigators in search of "deep pockets." In 1919, a diner at an A.B.C. shop in Sydney, Australia, filed a claim against A.B.C. for £1,000 (£ in current terms) claiming that she had eaten a pie at A.B.C. that contained a mouse. The plaintiff was revealed to have filed a false claim and the court found for the defendant, A.B.C.:
Mary Telfer, tailoress, claimed £1,000 to-day from the Aerated Bread Company Limited for injury to her health, owing, as she alleged, to having eaten portion of a rat or mouse in a meat pie served in defendants' shop. In the course of evidence given on behalf of defendants, a witness was called who declared he had prior knowledge that a trick was intended to be played on defendants. Witness also asserted that plaintiff was the known associate of “crooks.” The witness, in cross-examination, admitted several convictions in various State courts. A verdict was given for defendants.
At its peak in 1923, A.B.C. had 150 branch shops in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
and 250 tea shops and was second in terms of outlets only to J. Lyons and Co.
J. Lyons and Co.
J. Lyons & Co. was a market-dominant British restaurant-chain, food-manufacturing, and hotel conglomerate founded in 1887 as a spin-off from the Salmon & Gluckstein tobacco company....
This proliferation led George Orwell
George Orwell
Eric Arthur Blair , better known by his pen name George Orwell, was an English author and journalist...
to view A.B.C.'s tea shops, and those of its competitors, as the
sinister strand in English catering, the relentless industrialisation that was overtaking it: the 162 teashops of the Aerated Bread Company, the Lyons Corner HousesJ. Lyons and Co.J. Lyons & Co. was a market-dominant British restaurant-chain, food-manufacturing, and hotel conglomerate founded in 1887 as a spin-off from the Salmon & Gluckstein tobacco company....
, which rolled out 10 miles of swiss roll every day and manufactured millions of “frood” (frozen cooked food) meals, the milk bars that served "no real food at all … Everything comes out of a carton or a tin, or is hauled out of a refrigerator or squirted out of a tap or squeezed out of a tube."
This "sinister strand in English catering" did not stop such luminaries as George Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw was an Irish playwright and a co-founder of the London School of Economics. Although his first profitable writing was music and literary criticism, in which capacity he wrote many highly articulate pieces of journalism, his main talent was for drama, and he wrote more than 60...
(1856–1950) from frequenting A.B.C.'s teashops. His diaries are replete with entries attesting to his being a habitué of the establishment at various of its London locations. One such entry is for 12 December 1888: "… to the Aerated Bread Shop opposite the Mansion House station and had some eggs and chocolate there." A later entry for 27 January 1891, has him taking tea "at the Aerated Bread Shop at the corner of Parliament Square." An entry from 4 January 1892, has Shaw holding a meeting of the Shelley Society's The Cenci
The Cenci
The Cenci, A Tragedy, in Five Acts is a verse drama in five acts by Percy Bysshe Shelley written in the summer of 1819, and inspired by a real Italian family, the Cencis . Shelley composed the play at Rome and at Villa Valsovano near Livorno, from May to August 5, 1819...
committee at the A.B.C. teashop at Rathbone Place. Among other A.B.C. locations at which Shaw dined were Charing Cross Station, Oxford Circus, Piccadilly Circus, and opposite St. Clement Danes Church.
Finally, an interesting linguistic
Linguistics
Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. Linguistics can be broadly broken into three categories or subfields of study: language form, language meaning, and language in context....
fact regarding the A.B.C. tea shops is that the cockney
Cockney
The term Cockney has both geographical and linguistic associations. Geographically and culturally, it often refers to working class Londoners, particularly those in the East End...
in the era of the tea shops' heyday often referred to them as the "Arëated Bread Company" tea shops.
End of an era
1955 saw the end of the Aerated Bread Company as an independent operation. Australian operations had been liquidated in 1951. British operations were forever changed when the company was purchased by Allied Bakeries (now part of Associated British Foods) in 1955 by the "BarnumP. T. Barnum
Phineas Taylor Barnum was an American showman, businessman, scam artist and entertainer, remembered for promoting celebrated hoaxes and for founding the circus that became the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus....
of Bread," Canadian-born Garfield Weston
W. Garfield Weston
Willard Garfield Weston, OC, , Canadian businessman and philanthropist, led George Weston Limited and its various subsidiaries and associated companies, including Associated British Foods, for half a century and established one of the world's largest food processing and distribution concerns...
. With this acquisition, the self-service A.B.C. tea shops would join the high-end, morning-coated service of Fortnum & Mason
Fortnum & Mason
Fortnum & Mason, often shortened to just "Fortnum's" is a department store, situated in central London, with two other branches in Japan. Its headquarters is located at 181 Piccadilly, where it was established in 1707 by William Fortnum and Hugh Mason...
, already in Weston's corporate empire. As one U.S. magazine of the day put it: "[T]he Piccadilly prince is about to marry the tearoom Cinderella
Cinderella
"Cinderella; or, The Little Glass Slipper" is a folk tale embodying a myth-element of unjust oppression/triumphant reward. Thousands of variants are known throughout the world. The title character is a young woman living in unfortunate circumstances that are suddenly changed to remarkable fortune...
." Allied was expected to pay $
United States dollar
The United States dollar , also referred to as the American dollar, is the official currency of the United States of America. It is divided into 100 smaller units called cents or pennies....
8.1 million for A.B.C. ($ million in current dollars
United States dollar
The United States dollar , also referred to as the American dollar, is the official currency of the United States of America. It is divided into 100 smaller units called cents or pennies....
). At that time, Allied itself had a large share of the U.K. baked goods market. Allied's marketshare prior to acquiring A.B.C. was 10% of all U.K. bread production and the sale, per day, of 20 million biscuits (cookies in North America
North America
North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...
). Allied's sales
Sales (accounting)
In bookkeeping, accounting, and finance, Net sales are operating revenues earned by a company when it sells its products. Revenue are reported directly on the income statement as Sales or Net sales....
the year prior were $154 million ($ million in current dollars) with profits
Profit (accounting)
In accounting, profit can be considered to be the difference between the purchase price and the costs of bringing to market whatever it is that is accounted as an enterprise in terms of the component costs of delivered goods and/or services and any operating or other expenses.-Definition:There are...
of $12.6 million ($ million in current dollars). Worldwide, companies under Weston's umbrella had sales of over $1 billion
1000000000 (number)
1,000,000,000 is the natural number following 999,999,999 and preceding 1,000,000,001.In scientific notation, it is written as 109....
in 1954 ($ billion in current dollars) and profits of over $40 million ($ million in current dollars). Weston had the golden touch when it came to creating and operating extremely profitable companies during the Great Depression
Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
, the war
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, and the economic slump that was Britain in the immediate postwar years.
With London's ABC shops, where profits have been slipping, Baker Weston once more expects to show Britons how to turn flour into gold. For a starter, he will spend nearly $3,000,000 [$ million in current dollars] to expand the business, sell more baked goods, and hopes to push the chain into the No. 1 spot as Britain's biggest low-cost restaurant business. [Emphasis added.]
With this acquisition, Allied would almost double its share of the U.K.'s bread market by the end of the decade.
Under the Allied banner, A.B.C. continued trading until the early 1980s when the name disappeared. For many years it had had a major bakery on the Regent's Canal
Regent's Canal
Regent's Canal is a canal across an area just north of central London, England. It provides a link from the Paddington arm of the Grand Union Canal, just north-west of Paddington Basin in the west, to the Limehouse Basin and the River Thames in east London....
in Camden Town
Camden Town
-Economy:In recent years, entertainment-related businesses and a Holiday Inn have moved into the area. A number of retail and food chain outlets have replaced independent shops driven out by high rents and redevelopment. Restaurants have thrived, with the variety of culinary traditions found in...
, London. This closed in the 1980s when A.B.C. ceased operation and today is the site of a Sainsbury's store and Grand Union Walk Housing, both designed by prominent English architect, Sir Nicholas Grimshaw of Grimshaw Architects
Grimshaw Architects
Grimshaw Architects is an architectural firm based in London. Founded in 1980 by Sir Nicholas Grimshaw, the firm was one of the pioneers of high-tech architecture...
.
Dauglish's method has since been rendered obsolete in the U.K. by the adoption of mechanical, high-speed dough processes such as the Chorleywood Bread Process
Chorleywood Bread Process
The Chorleywood bread process is an industrial process used to lower the cost of bread production. The CBP, or no time method, was developed in 1961 by the British Baking Industries Research Association based at Chorleywood, and is now used to make 80% of the UK's bread...
(CBP), now responsible for 80 percent of U.K. bread production. One should note that since the new "no time" methods — such as CBP — permit the use of lower grade flours, the resultant product is of less nutritional value than breads made by earlier methods such as Dauglish's aerated bread system.
Nowadays, the only traces of the Aerated Bread Company are faded signs above stores, such as 125 The Strand, now a supermarket.
Dracula (Bram Stoker)
In the latter part of the novel, Jonathan Harker recalls stopping at the Aerated Bread Company for a cup of tea, after having spent the afternoon searching for Count Dracula's lair.It was now dark, and I was tired and hungry. I got a cup of tea at the Aerated Bread Company and came down to Purfleet by the next train.
The Old Man in the Corner (Baroness Orczy)
In a 1909 collection of short storiesShort Stories
Short Stories may refer to:*A plural for Short story*Short Stories , an American pulp magazine published from 1890-1959*Short Stories, a 1954 collection by O. E...
entitled, The Old Man in the Corner
The Old Man in the Corner
Created by Baroness Orczy, author of the famous Scarlet Pimpernel series, The Old Man In the Corner was one of the earliest armchair detectives, popping up with so many others in the wake of the huge popularity of the Sherlock Holmes stories....
, by Baroness Orczy
Baroness Orczy
Baroness Emma Magdolna Rozália Mária Jozefa Borbála "Emmuska" Orczy de Orczi was a British novelist, playwright and artist of Hungarian noble origin. She was most notable for her series of novels featuring the Scarlet Pimpernel...
, a "teahouse detective" named Bill Owen meets and discusses criminal cases with a young woman journalist, Miss Polly Burton, in an A.B.C. teashop. The teashops are first mentioned in "The Fenchurch Street Mystery."
Now this particular corner, this very same table, that special view of the magnificent marble hall — known as the Norfolk Street branch of the Aërated Bread Company's depôts — were Polly's own corner, table, and view. Here she had partaken of eleven pennyworth of luncheon and one pennyworth of daily information ever since that glorious never-to-be-forgotten day when she was enrolled on the staff of the Evening Observer (we'll call it that, if you please), and became a member of that illustrious and world-famed organization known as the British Press.
These stories were also broadcast in 1998 and 2000 as radio plays on BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4 is a British domestic radio station, operated and owned by the BBC, that broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history. It replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. The station controller is currently Gwyneth Williams, and the...
as The Teahouse Detective.
“A Cooking Egg” (T.S. Eliot)
In a poem composed in 1917 and first published in 1919, T.S. Eliot asks, "Where are the eagles and the trumpets?" His answer:Buried beneath some snow-deep Alps.
Over buttered scones and crumpets
Weeping, weeping multitudes
Droop in a hundred A.B.C.’s.
Night and Day (Virginia Woolf)
In the Virginia Woolf novel, Night and Day, Katherine Hilbery goes into an A.B.C. shop to write a letter to Ralph Denham."She would write him a letter and take it at once to his house. She bought paper and pencil at a bookstall, and entered an A.B.C. shop, where, by ordering a cup of coffee, she secured an empty table, and began at once to write..."
The Secret Adversary (Agatha Christie)
In the 1922 espionage thriller, The Secret AdversaryThe Secret Adversary
The Secret Adversary is a work of detective fiction by Agatha Christie and first published in the United Kingdom by The Bodley Head in January 1922 and in the United States by Dodd, Mead and Company later in that same year. The UK edition retailed at seven shillings and sixpence and the US edition...
by Agatha Christie
Agatha Christie
Dame Agatha Christie DBE was a British crime writer of novels, short stories, and plays. She also wrote romances under the name Mary Westmacott, but she is best remembered for her 66 detective novels and 14 short story collections , and her successful West End plays.According to...
, Tommy Beresford is held captive by a spy ring bent on crippling the British economy with a general strike. For the time that Tommy is a prisoner, he is not fed. Upon escaping, the first thing Tommy does is head to an A.B.C. teashop for sustenance.
First of all, he must have a square meal. He had eaten nothing since midday yesterday. He turned into an A.B.C. shop and ordered eggs and bacon and coffee. Whilst he ate, he read a morning paper propped up in front of him. Suddenly he stiffened. There was a long article on Kramenin, who was described as the “man
behind Bolshevism” in Russia, and who had just arrived in London — some thought as an unofficial envoy. His career was sketched lightly, and it was firmly asserted that he, and not the figurehead leaders, had been the author of the Russian Revolution.
Once satiated, Tommy and his partners in detection go on to foil the plans of the conspirators.
The Secret Adversary was adapted into a teleplay
Teleplay
A teleplay is a television play, a comedy or drama written or adapted for television. The term surfaced during the 1950s with wide usage to distinguish a television plays from stage plays for the theater and screenplays written for films...
and broadcast in 1983 by London Weekend Television
London Weekend Television
London Weekend Television was the name of the ITV network franchise holder for Greater London and the Home Counties including south Suffolk, middle and east Hampshire, Oxfordshire, south Bedfordshire, south Northamptonshire, parts of Herefordshire & Worcestershire, Warwickshire, east Dorset and...
as part of that television network's Partners in Crime
Agatha Christie's Partners in Crime
Agatha Christie's Partners in Crime is a 1983 British television series based on the short stories of the same name by Agatha Christie. It was directed by John A. Davis and Tony Wharmby, and starred James Warwick and Francesca Annis in the leading roles of husband and wife sleuths Tommy and...
series.
Jacob's Room (Virginia Woolf)
In the Virginia Woolf novel, Jacob's RoomJacob's Room
Jacob's Room is the third novel by Virginia Woolf, first published on October 26th 1922.The novel centers, in a very ambiguous way, around the life story of the protagonist Jacob Flanders, and is presented entirely by the impressions other characters have of Jacob [except for those times when we do...
, Florinda walks the streets of London and ends up in an A.B.C. shop.
"Now Florinda wept, and spent the day wandering the streets [...] read love letters, propping them against the milk pot in the A.B.C. shop; detected glass in the sugar bowl; accused the waitress of wishing to poison her; declared that young men stared at her..."
Augustus Carp Esq (by Himself)
Having entered commercial life as a show-room manager in the religious publishing business of Mr Chrysostom Lorton of Paternoster Row, Enfield, Augustus Carp makes several references to the Aerated Bread Company in a detailed description of his daily routine:At eleven o'clock, therefore, I would despatch Miss Botterill to a neighbouring branch of the Aerated Bread Company for a glass of hot milk and a substantial slice of a cake appropriately known as lunch cake. I would then, at twelve-thirty, repair in person to the same branch of this valuable company, where I would generally order from one of the quieter waitresses a double portion of sausages and mashed potatoes, accompanied by a cup of coffee, and followed by an apple dumpling or a segment of baked jam roll.
and:
By three o'clock, however, they had both returned, and I would take the opportunity, five minutes later, of again sending Miss Botterill to the Aerated Bread Company for my mid-afternoon cup of tea. This I would drink, unthickened by food, but at half-past four I would send her out for another cup, and with this I would eat a roll and butter, a small dish of honey, and perhaps a single doughnut.