Harrison Barber—Horse Slaughterers

[Gary Barnett]

Gary
I beat you to it with that East Ham link - which shows he was gone from there by 1886 when that bloke from Epping wanted his horse slaughtered by Hart at Dog Row - aka Railway Place.

He wanted the horse delivered to Dog Row. Hart was in Railway Place while his boiling operation in East Ham was going on. I suspect he may have moved from there to Barking. That’s where the knackering/boiling probably went on.

[Gary Barnett]

And Gary, I note, with approval, your recent belief that Charles Lechmere probably carted meat around London, all the more easy to disguise dismembered body parts prior to tossing them in the Thames and elsewhere.
Did Charles Lechmere give his mother the idea to get into the Cat's Meat distribution business?
If so, was the meat initially from the provinces via Broad Street? It seems logical, rather than being from Harrison Barber.
Supplemented from Harts maybe for a bit of off the back of a lorry type of extras?

HB imported meat from the provinces. CAL may well have then have delivered it to their premises. That would explain what he (if it was him) was doing a few streets away from John Harrison’s yards in 1876(3?).

[Edward Stow]

Why would someone - say Charles Hart - pay to advertise in a trade directory one address and one address only, as a horse slaughterer? To mislead punters?
We know he slaughtered there also. But he would not have boiled etc there as that would have attracted attention. Which is probably why the Lechmere's boiled it in their garden after cutting it up - separation of duties.

Who said Old Ma Lechmere ran a heavyweight wholesale business? I said she wasn't a street hawker.
Most if not all of those who advertised in trade directories were clearly wholesalers.
There is also a picture somewhere of a butchers shop on St George's Street (previously Ratcliffe Highway) showing horse meat hanging up - big slabs with bones - that were almost certainly not for human consumption (officially)... which may even have been her shop.

[Gary Barnett]

Why would someone - say Charles Hart - pay to advertise in a trade directory one address and one address only, as a horse slaughterer? To mislead punters?
We know he slaughtered there also. But he would not have boiled etc there as that would have attracted attention. Which is probably why the Lechmere's boiled it in their garden after cutting it up - separation of duties.

Who said Old Ma Lechmere ran a heavyweight wholesale business? I said she wasn't a street hawker.
Most if not all of those who advertised in trade directories were clearly wholesalers.
There is also a picture somewhere of a butchers shop on St George's Street (previously Ratcliffe Highway) showing horse meat hanging up - big slabs with bones - that were almost certainly not for human consumption (officially)... which may even have been her shop.

You tell me.

We know that in 1878 he was accused of doing so, given a hefty fine and threatened with further fines of up to £50 per day if he didn’t desist. That’s the only evidence there is.

I think it may well have been for human consumption. Why are you ‘almost certain’ that it wasn’t?

[Edward Stow]

There was a scandal about horse meat being eaten and a big report about the same time.

It isn't the only evidence we have- we have 1886 as well.

I'll tell you why he advertised - because he slaughtered horses - and he did it at Railway Place.

[Gary Barnett]

I wonder if your George Smyth is the one living in West Ham in 1891 alongside another horse slaughterer named William Smith (born West Ham)? Perhaps they did their slaughtering in West Ham, they certainly couldn’t have got a licence to do so in Mile End.

[Gary Barnett]

There was a scandal about horse meat being eaten and a big report about the same time.

It isn't the only evidence we have- we have 1886 as well.

I'll tell you why he advertised - because he slaughtered horses - and he did it at Railway Place.

There were concerns about horse meat being misrepresented as beef and concerns that knackers meat (possibly diseased or otherwise unfit) was being sold for human consumption. I think you’ll find that towards the end of WWI, through the depression and into WWII and the subsequent austerity years, the consumption of horse meat intended for humans increased. By law, shops selling it had to state ‘horse flesh/meat sold here’. I remember the photo you are referring to. It came from the STGITE history site. If the meat was clearly labelled as horseflesh, and was dressed as butcher’s meat (i.e. with bones) it probably was for human consumption.

Why did HB advertise their premises in Romford when they didn’t slaughter there? Because it attracted customers with knackers to sell. Unless the customer was selling a beloved pet whose welfare he cared about, why would he be remotely interested in the process after he had handed over the horse and been paid for it?

[Edward Stow]

If they slaughtered in West Ham... where and why didn't they advertise there?
And what did he do at the railway arch?
The trouble is, you focus on legal activity.

For my purposes, would it have been useful for Old Ma Lechmere to have a fine toothed saw?
Is it plausible that she would, from time to time, gave had hookey horse meat - not killed through official channels and through the regulated process.
The answer to me is an obvious yes.

I clearly don't have cast iron proof but that would be very unlikely anyway.
Is it wild conjecture - no.
Is there evidence to support my suggestion - yes.

[Edward Stow]

Harrison Barber had multiple premises which they advertised and under a variety of categories in the trade directory sometimes.
That isn't the case for Hart or Smythe.

[Gary Barnett]

Here’s the photo and some info.

[Gary Barnett]

Harrison Barber had multiple premises which they advertised and under a variety of categories in the trade directory sometimes.
That isn't the case for Hart or Smythe.

So what’s the point?

If you lived in Romford and had a knacker to sell you might think they had a slaughter yard there. Why would that not be just as ‘misleading’?

But, then, why would it matter to you?

[Gary Barnett]

John Harrison had a knackers yard in Pleasant Grove. I don’t recall that ever being listed in a trade directory.

Bear in mind that the first stage in the knacker’s trade was the negotiation and purchase of the horses. You listed those premises where you were happy for that to happen. If Hart allowed his employees in West Ham, Barking etc to buy horses while he wasn’t present they might pay too much, buy the wrong horses or rip him off.

[Gary Barnett]

And to be a complete pedant, I should point out that the address HB advertised in York Road was that of their office there and not the nearby slaughter yards

[Edward Stow]

You seem to ignore the fact that in 1886 a man in Epping directed his horse to be taken to Railway Place to be slaughtered - but according to you it would have been taken from there to some unknown place in Essex.

Also why did Harrison Barber advertise their yard in Whitechapel if all negotiations were done elsewhere?

You actually also admitted that not all early yards were listed... such as perhaps Parliament Street.

In any case none of this shakes the points that I made about what is useful to me in the formulation of my case - which you were good enough to agree were far more solid than the ridiculous nonsense Dr Gray published about Hardiman.
And I have to get back to that as his introduction about PC Spicer is also utter baloney.

[Gary Barnett]

You seem to ignore the fact that in 1886 a man in Epping directed his horse to be taken to Railway Place to be slaughtered - but according to you it would have been taken from there to some unknown place in Essex.

Also why did Harrison Barber advertise their yard in Whitechapel if all negotiations were done elsewhere?

You actually also admitted that not all early yards were listed... such as perhaps Parliament Street.

In any case none of this shakes the points that I made about what is useful to me in the formulation of my case - which you were good enough to agree were far more solid than the ridiculous nonsense Dr Gray published about Hardiman.
And I have to get back to that as his introduction about PC Spicer is also utter baloney.

I thought I had addressed point 1.

Point 2 you’ve misunderstood.

I could elaborate on point 3, but...

I’m glad you consider Drew’s ideas about Hardiman ‘ridiculous nonsense’. I seem to recall a couple of years ago you and Christer arguing that Hardiman was in fact a knacker.