By Patricia Fallon
Within the Kells Urban District Council collection is a Free Milk Scheme register dating from March 1935, detailing the administration of a milk grant. It lists the families in the area that were eligible for the scheme and the quantity of milk they received per week. The register is a record of the distribution of milk under the National Free Milk Scheme, in operation from 1932, under which free milk was made available to children from low-income families or who themselves were deemed to be of poor health. The government made an annual grant of £90,000 for the scheme. The quantity of milk allocated to each family was: for one child, one pint; for two children, 1.5 pints; for three children, two pints; for malnourished children, one pint each.
It is the only record of its kind within the Kells Urban District Council collection, but it provides a snapshot of a time when there was a focus on early years health for children. This free scheme was only possible thanks to the hard work of health practitioners advocating to improve farming practices to allow for safer dairy milk production.
From the mid-nineteenth century, practices had changed enormously in dairy production. Up to that point dairying had been largely carried out by hand in individual farms. After the first creamery was opened in Limerick in the 1870s, milk-processing had to move from the individual farms to centralised plants, but the advance in production methods did not initially improve local farming practices; standards remained low, and outbreaks of tuberculosis (TB) were frequent. In the early years of the twentieth century the advances in control of infectious disease and a greater understanding of pasteurisation throughout the United Kingdom saw the infant mortality rate drop to 80–180 per 1,000 live births per year. This was recognised by the new Irish Free State, particularly by those working in medicine and health care. They identified that conditions surrounding milk production would have to be improved to advance standards of health for children.
The Clean Milk Society was set up and held its first meeting in Dublin in May 1926. It consisted of men and women who were working in health or more broadly on health issues. Two prominent members included Lady Aberdeen, associated with an anti-tuberculosis campaign driven by the Women’s National Health Association (WNHA), and Sir Edward Coey Bigger, chairman of the Irish Public Health Council, the Central Midwives Board for Ireland and the General Nursing Council for Ireland. He had recently authored a report to the Carnegie United Kingdom Trust on the physical welfare of mothers and children in Ireland.
Not long after its inception, Dr Spencer Sheill gave evidence to the government on behalf of the Clean Milk Society, which had begun research on milk supply. He stated that 5% of the population were cripples, the vast majority as a result of TB of a bovine origin. He also estimated that in the past fifteen years bovine TB had increased from one in five to one in three cows. The want of cleanliness in milk was due to milking with filthy hands, filthy habits and in filthy surroundings.
Another early part of the Society’s campaign was to organise Clean Milk demonstrations, and they had a stall at the 1927 Spring Show in the RDS, demonstrating how clean milk might be achieved. In November 1928 the Irish Clean Milk Society presented a petition to the minister for local government, asking for legislation to ensure a safe milk supply in the Saorstat. There were 2,279 signatures, including those of 99 doctors, matrons and other public representatives. Support for the campaign from the medical community was clear. In 1933 the Infant Aid Society was commended for its advocacy work, which had helped to decrease infant mortality from 143 per 1,000 in 1921 to 94 per 1,000 in 1931. This was linked to their involvement in the clean milk campaign.
The culmination of this advocacy and research was the Milk and Dairies Bill, which was signed into law on 14 June 1935. The act was to make further and better provision in relation to the production and sale of milk with a view to improving the standards of purity and wholesomeness thereof. On 5 January 1935 an advertisement was placed in the Meath Chronicle by the Meath Board of Health and Public Assistance, looking for applications for the free milk scheme for children of casual and ill-paid workers who were unable from their own resources to provide adequate milk supplies for their young children.
The scheme was still open to all dairy farms to supply milk, but as a direct result of the act the Meath Board of Health and Public Assistance met on 18 March 1936, as approved by the minister for local government and public health, and subsequently placed an advertisement stating that preference would be given to TB-free herds with a veterinary inspection report.
The Irish Clean Milk Society ceased to meet after 1937; with the enactment of the Milk and Dairies Act its objective had been achieved. Its work ensured that children under the Free Milk Scheme, both in Kells and across the country, had safe access to clean milk.
Patricia Fallon is Meath County Archivist.