Chapter 13.01: Lord Lansdowne!

Introduction to Bacon & the Art of Living

The story of bacon is set in the late 1800s and early 1900s when most of the important developments in bacon took place. The plotline takes place in the 2000s with each character referring to a real person and actual events. The theme is a kind of “steampunk” where modern mannerisms, speech, clothes and practices are superimposed on a historical setting. Modern people interact with old historical figures with all the historical and cultural bias that goes with this.

narrative – the history of bacon

Lord Lansdowne

January 1892

Dear Kids,

My letter today is entirely of one of the most exciting train rides I ever had in my life. The destination, the company, the conversation, and the place we visited on our way to our destination.

Postcard dated 1917 Calne railway station.jpg — Postcard dated 1917: Calne railway station

We found ourselves, travelling on the Great Western Railway from London to Calne. At the insistence of our new host, Mr Fife, we got off at Bath. Bath is a postcard-perfect town. The experience of seeing the town is surreal as you walk back in time to where Roman baths from the 3rd century are still in use today! A newspaper I picked up on the train says about Bath that “nowhere in England have so many great men and women come and for a time lived and left behind them such clear and charming chronicles of their tarrying as in the interesting old Somersetshire city of Bath.” (St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 1892) Bath has a known antiquity of almost 2000 years and a claimed antiquity of at least another 1000 years beyond that.” The hot baths possess a luxury not rivalled anywhere in Europe. Another journalist wrote that “As one is enjoying the thermal waters, it is striking that these, Roman Emperors and Generals of 1400 to 1800 years ago shared. These waters banished the ills of St David, King Arthur, and a vast line of old British princes and potentates for half a thousand years beyond.” (St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 1892)

After a pleasant day at Bath, we returned East along the ancient Roman road linking Bristol and London by train to arrive in Calne in the late afternoon. As the train slowly made its way into a newly built station, two large and impressive buildings of the Harris Bacon operation flank the station. It signals clearly to anyone arriving on the Great Western Express that this is bacon country!

Blackland Mill, Calne, c. 1903, Wiltshire & Swindon History Centre, Chippenham (1)

Calne has a sleepy character, except, I am told, on market days. Houses are built with a coarser kind of Bath stone or Sarson stone. It very quickly ages. After only one year it looks older than a limestone house looks after five. It has a creamish, grey tint which resembles the look of the stones that form the footpaths, built from broken Sarson stone. Mr Fife used our time on the train to enlighten us about the politics of the area.

Market day Calne. The Landsdowne Hotel, visible on this drawing is still there. Supplied by Ian Gruncell.

Calne is situated on the estate of the Marquis of Lansdowne. The Marquis was the Governor-General of Canada from 1883 to 1888 and currently serves as Viceroy of India, a post he occupied since 1888. His estate manor, Bowood, is situated a mile away from Calne which is located on his estate for which he receives rental income. The small farms and houses are mostly held in tenantry and some have been on the estate for ages. The cottages of the labourers are said to be the best in Wiltshire (and the cheapest). Most of these are three bedrooms with a small garden. In England, the Marquis is known as a reasonable gentleman of high intelligence and a keen sportsman.

The Marquis of Lansdowne, like the Marquis of Bath, is also a large landowner in Ireland. The former in Kerry and Kildare and the latter in Monaghan. In Ireland, they are referred to as “absent landowners”. A third English nobleman, Lord Digby, from the next county of Dorset, owns 31,000 acres in King’s County near Tullamore. Interestingly, all three have the same agent, Mr Trench. These men, although they are quite forgiving about rental payments in England, instructed their Irish agent to collect as much rent as he could from the tenants on their Irish estates. We have then three neighbours, all three owning large lands in Ireland with the same agent. This seemingly trivial fact, I quickly discovered, is very important in trying to understand why the Irish invention of Mild Cured bacon by William Oake did not cross over into England, but instead, through the power of being at the right place, at the right time, the importance of which Oscar’s Dad reminded us of at the founding meeting of Woodys, was adopted in Denmark as the way they now produce all their bacon.

Something else is of interest. Mr Fife told Minette and me that Mr Trent’s father occupied the same position as the Irish agent to the fathers of the three noblemen. Mr. Trent, Senior even wrote a book about his experiences, The Realities of Irish Life. I understand that a copy of this work is in the library and Bowood!

Map of cast 2.png — Map of the three manor houses of the wealthy landowners introduced to me on the train from Bath to Calne

The manor houses of the Marquis of Bath, the Marquis of Lansdowne, and Lord Digby are Longleat, and Bowood next to Calne, and Minterne House respectively. I did not tell the stranger on the train that our guest in Calne was none other than Henry Petty-Fitzmaurice, 5th Marquis of Lansdowne! Our ultimate destination for that evening was Bowood!

Mr Fife not only enlightened us about the politics of Calne but also told us how the landowner was often very involved in the affairs of the villagers who resided on their land. Lord Lansdowne, for example, supplies 30 Highland Bulls for use by the tenants on the estate. The same was true of pigs. The landowner would secure the best boars from China and make them available for the tenants on his farm to impregnate their sows which meant that the pigs raised in such a village all have similar characteristics.

I immediately thought of the Kolbroek pigs of Oupa Eben. Uncle Timo and Oupa Eben told me about the pigs that came to Cape Town with the Colebrook ship (Kolbroek). I did not understand the importance of the boar in transmitting its characteristics to his offspring, and how, if the pigs are bred in a closed unit like on the land of a landowner, the kind of pigs raised will become typical of that village. In this way, he explained to us, breeds started forming, typical to specific towns and counties across England. I know that the origin of the Kolbroek breed is debated in South Africa, but sitting on the train to Calne, and listening to these Mr Fife, I have a feeling that he knows a thing or two about pigs, and that unless slaves or farmers kept the pigs that swam from the Colebrook together and farmed with them, that they would not have developed as a “breed” in the Cape Colony. It all started to make sense to me.

I started to wonder about C & T Harris. Back home, Oscar and I did the calculations of how much it would cost to set up a commercial curing operation. It requires an enormous amount of money and I wondered if Lord Lansdowne and his ancestors somehow supported or funded the establishment of such a large business as C & T Harris. On the other hand, did it organically grow over many years into the lucrative business it is today without any investment from a wealthy landowner?

These matters will be investigated carefully over the next few months. My mind wondred back to the two of you in Cape Town. I thought about Julies discussion with me about Minette and how our lives would change forever over the next years as we continue this great quest. Not only the quest of bacon, but the adventure of life itself!

Around the corner is Bowood and Calne! I can hardly wait!

Love,

Dad

Stay in touch

Notes

(1) Blackland Mill, Calne, c. 1903 from the Wiltshire & Swindon History Centre, Chippenham,

“It is likely that there was a mill on this site in the 13th century or earlier. The mill was rebuilt in three stages in c.1800 to incorporate the mill, a mill house, and a detached granary. This mill had a 19 ft. wheel, three pairs of stones, and a loft, which could accommodate 1,000 sacks of wheat. Milling ceased between 1915 and 1920 but then continued until 1982. The mill was restored between 1982 and 1983 and then produced wholewheat flour until 1993. When this photograph was taken the miller was Abraham Lock.”

Source: https://history.wiltshire.gov.uk/community/getimage.php?id=2411