Baker Perkins Historical Society - Virtual Books
BAKER PERKINS AT WAR
EPILOGUENon-Military Activities INDEX
J. Allen Baker's Work for PeaceWars are not won by guns alone. It should come as no surprise that the
company was involved in many other activities during these periods
of world turbulence. Perhaps the most obvious being the efforts
of J. Allen Baker's work for peace (aided by his son Philip Noel-Baker),
which took him around the world attempting to persuade both sides of
the folly of pursuing their headlong descent into world conflict -
full details of which can be found in "J.Allen Baker A Memoir
by E. B. Baker and P. J. Noel Baker, and in Augustus Muir's - "History
of Baker Perkins - Chapter 12. However - "This was the last time he turned his mind backwards to the past. From that day he was at work for the new order that was to follow from the War. His work was of many kinds and many lands. There were few civilians who travelled as he did in those long years while others stayed at home through necessity or discretion, while many thought a channel crossing a grave risk, he went far and wide without a moment's thought for the dangers he incurred. He went to France, Italy, Switzerland, Holland, across the North Sea to Scandinavia, and on to Russia, across the Mediterranean to Greece, and to Canada and the United States for the most part twice a year. He was travelling most at the time when submarine warfare was at its height. For his ship to be chased by enemy craft became so usual an experience that he hardly thought of it." His contact with the United States became ever closer as the years went by. He came to believe that President Wilson would "prove to be one of America's greatest Presidents". Time did nothing to alter that opinion. By the time the war had lasted eighteen months, he had begun to hope, Quaker and Pacifist that he was, that the Americans would come into the War". Allen Baker took great pride in the Friends Ambulance Unit's' success
serving on the committees both of the Friends' Ambulance and of the Italian
unit. He was perhaps more active than any other of their members in raising
the funds that were required, describing himself as "first-rate
beggar" , in England, Scotland, Canada and the United States, raising
by letters, interviews and speeches, large sums of money which enabled
the units to carry on. Inevitably, the unit experienced some shelling,
and one shell threw a splinter which cut Allen Baker's hand. This
provided a sensational headline for the Toronto "Star"; "Canadian-born
M.P. Wounded on Italian Front; Mr J. Allen Baker Hit By Flying Shrapnel." The "wound" did
not prevent him from carrying out his arranged programme; however, his
coolness under fire justified the remark of one of his companions that "he
seemed to have no nerves." Feeding the TroopsMuch of the information provided in this Epilogue can be found by following the links in the main section of this "book". However it is felt that the efforts made by Baker Perkins in developing automatic bread plants through two World Wars justify closer focus as they could be considered to be more in line with its "Quaker" image. (See also Mobile Field Bakeries - below). There follows a brief account of the development of equipment for feeding the troops; Joseph Baker & Sons became established in England with the move of Joseph Baker and his family from Canada in 1878, Angier March Perkins, the second son of Jacob Perkins, was 21 when, in 1821, he sailed from America with the rest of his family to join his father, Jacob Perkins. Both families recognised the opportunity to mechanise the baking business. Later, when Angier had to step in to rescue the Perkins business to counter his father's profligacy, the scene was set for some healthy but at times bitter, competition. One of the key driving forces behind the Baker family's efforts was their determination to improve the lot of the baker. J. Allen Baker visited many bake houses and was horrified by what he witnessed: "Night baking with intolerably long hours, the workers sleeping in their kneading-troughs, the kneading done with bare feet, no proper ventilation or sanitary arrangements, cockroaches, mice and sometimes even rats In untold numbers". He saw these things as being as dangerous to the public as they were to the workers and resolved to improve conditions by introducing machinery into the confectionery and baking industry.  Before Mechanisation - The "Aldershot" Oven These two images might suggest that the conditions experienced by the military were at least as daunting as J.Allen Baker had experienced in the civilian bread baking business of nineteenth century London.  A German Mobile Bakery in WW1 Feeding soldiers in action, often under very adverse conditions, as these images suggest poses many problems for the military. Soldiers on active service require large volumes of food that is nutritious and palatable, prepared and delivered under hygienic conditions. The final stage of delivery to the soldier in the front line clearly creates particular problems. It has been said that in WW1 it could take up to eight days before bread reached the front-line and so it was invariably stale. Fortunately, bread has many of the desired characteristics. The type of bread required on active service has been described as - "Apart from being palatable, the shape, crust and texture must be such as will resist the rough handling such bread receives during transport to the troops in action. Experience has shown that a 2-lb, 7” square loaf about 4” high with a reasonably heavy crust and not too open a texture, will withstand this rough handling. The most expedient way of producing this loaf is to bake them six in a pan measuring 20½” x 13½”. In manually producing this loaf, it is only necessary to divide, hand up into a ball, and set them on the trays for a final proof". It is generally thought that all troops had to exist on the same meagre rations, such as army biscuits and bully beef, made bearable by gifts from home. However, those fighting in northwest Europe in WW2 fared much better. Fresh and chilled meats were widely available as were fresh vegetables. Troops often did not have the luxury of fresh fruit and eggs were of the powdered variety, which was also in short supply. Mail, tea and cigarettes were supplied from home. The men huddled in their trenches in WW1 were less well served. The men at the Front considered the rations to be "appalling", particularly the hated "Maconochie" - a thin stew of unrecognisable meat and vegetables, barely edible when hot and "disgusting" when cold. Instead of bread there were biscuits produced by Huntley & Palmers and teeth crackingly hard unless first soaked in tea or water. "The soldiers in the trenches didn't starve but they hated the monotony of their food," says Dr Rachel Duffett, a historian at the University of Essex. "They were promised fresh meat and bread but the reality was often very different." (With acknowledgements) Andrew Robertshaw, a curator at the Royal Logistic Corps Museum, in Camberley, Surrey, and author of "Feeding Tommy", says: "There was no Army catering corps and in the trenches the men fended for themselves. But away from the frontline there was a cook for about every 100 men. (With acknowledgements) NOTE: The logistics of delivering nutritious food in the form of "combat rations" to men under fire is a fascinating and complicated subject in its own right that, should you be so inclined, can be sampled simply by "Googling" - Feeding the Troops. We have been unable to uncover any relevant activity by Baker Perkins group companies unless one includes the suggestion that the hard biscuits made under War Office contract by Huntley & Palmers were in fact made on Baker Perkins equipment. This narrative therefore will confine itself to the role played by Baker Perkins in developing automatic bread plants.  The involvement of Baker Perkins in the baking industry can be traced back to a significant event (see here) which resulted in Angier Perkins taking out a patent in 1851 for a wrought-iron tubular system for circulating hot water in ovens. Most of these ovens were bought for baking bread for the army at home and overseas, more than seventy per cent of sales being to the military authorities. In these early days of oven manufacture, Perkins helped to feed more soldiers than civilians. (See - "Bread Oven Technology"). With the success of Angier Perkins' ovens, the race was on to develop a completely automatic bread plant by mechanising the highly labour-intensive dough preparation process. Fortunately, two men of genius were working on this problem - John Pointon collaborating with the Perkins' business and John Callow, a man who, like John Pointon, was driven to improving the lot of the baker in the second half of the 1800s, working with the Bakers on their ‘Patent “New Process” Bread Making System’. For an evocative description of the trials and tribulations experienced by John Pointon and his father whilst developing his dough divider and getting it accepted by bakery managers, see here). To understand the significance of John Callow's achievements - see "Bread Making Machinery Development. Later, after much experimentation, John Callow was able to develop a
process of automatic dough-dividing and by 1903, the Pointons had designed
a machine to mould dough for bread making. The development of a device
to mechanise the rest period required by the dough to recover and rise
took much longer and resulted in a swinging tray prover. This formed
the link between the ‘Universal’ mixer and kneader and the
steam oven. (See also here). Army Base BakeriesA British Army Base Bakery of WW1 would have appeared similar to this German example. So far we have been unable to locate a relevant image of a British Base Bakery of the time but the number of men required to support those in the front line is obvious. What is not shown is the large number of men making-up and preparing the dough for these men to load into the ovens, until the end of WW1, a laborious task carried out entirely by hand.  German Static Base Bakery in WW1 E.H. Gilpin (Senior Director of Joseph Baker & Sons), had calculated that the use of large automatic bread-baking equipment would release 20,000 of these men for fighting. (See here). Soon after the outbreak of hostilities, Gilpin embarked on the long and arduous process of beating on as many doors in the War Office as possible to argue his point. His persistence finally rewarded, he was asked as a matter of urgency to set up a demonstration as soon as possible and, for speed, the Baker directors decided to invite Ihlee to come in: he jumped at the chance of collaboration. The new plant, made partly at Willesden and partly at Peterborough, was ready in twelve weeks for the officials from Whitehall to inspect. A contract was drawn up between the War Office and Joseph Baker & Sons, and the Bakers entered into a sub-contract with Peterborough. The two firms divided the manufacture, Perkins being allotted the mixing machines, final moulders and draw-plate ovens, while the dividers, the first moulders and provers were turned out at Willesden. The complete unit was named the Baker Perkins Standard Army Bread Plant. (For a description of the equipment installed in a British Base Bakery see "Static Field Bakeries" below). Muir, in his "The History of Baker Perkins"; tells us: "Installations were made in England and at the base bakeries at Rouen and Boulogne. Eventually, the whole of the British Army on the Western Front was dependent on these bakeries for bread. The Americans in France became interested and soon Baker and Perkins were erecting for them, at Dijon, baking plant that turned out a million rations of bread per day. Herbert Kirman thus found himself in charge of all of the military bread plant on the Western front. After recovering from his wounds, Major Joseph S. Baker was appointed Inspector of all military baking equipment". This coming together of Perkins Engineers Ltd. and Joseph Baker & Sons Ltd. in their war effort could not have been more propitious. If any single step could be called the crucial one in the union of the two firms, it was the request from the Baker board that Ihlee would collaborate in the Army bread plant. By May 1915, field bakeries began to be equipped with Perkins steam-pipe ovens - the bakery at Calais having 39 Perkins ovens by 1916 - and in the larger bakeries, machinery was introduced for mixing, dividing, scaling and moulding. However, some bakeries remained as hand-bakeries equipped with army-type Perkins Field ovens. In January 1918, members of the British Women's Auxiliary Army Corps were introduced to the Rouen bakery - a process aimed at freeing more men for front-line duties. The women were used on the dividing and moulding machines - usually Baker Callow dough dividers and umbrella pattern Perkins dough moulders.(See here) Static Field BakeriesIt was due to the success of the Standard Army Bakery Plant, (see History of Joseph Baker Sons & Perkins), that it was decided, at the beginning of World War II, to establish three large Static Machine Bakeries in France, to be used in conjunction with the well-known Mobile Bakeries. However, due to the rapid fall of France in 1940, they were never built and it was not until 1943, that they were commissioned in England. The machinery, supplied by Baker Perkins, had been allowed to rust at Sir Moore’s Barracks, Shorncliffe, near Folkestone, Kent, in the three and a half years between 1939 and 1943, before being installed and brought into use at three sites – at Newchapel, Surrey, Danesbury Park, Welwyn, Hertfordshire and at Leaton, near Shrewsbury, Shropshire. The equipment comprised of, one flour plant, two 2 sack-sized ‘Viennara’ dough kneading machines, one sack cleaner, two reciprocating head single pocket dividers and conical hand-ups, one four piece pocket prover, one ‘Z’ Type conical moulder and five double-decker, oil-fired, drawplate ovens. The ovens had separate furnaces, fuelled by oil, which heated water, the steam being conveyed along sealed pipes to provide the heat. Having separate furnaces enabled each baking chamber to bake at different temperatures, if required. Each oven held ninety-six Quartern loaves per deck, eight loaves wide and twelve deep, the loaves taking about forty-five minutes to bake. The equipment was typically housed in a series of corrugated iron huts, three short huts on one side for storing flour and other ingredients and two very long huts on the other housing the ovens and make-up equipment and bread store. During the war, deliveries of flour and other ingredients were made under the cover of darkness, to prevent detection by enemy aircraft, with the Bakery buildings being large enough to accept the delivery lorries being reversed into the building to be off-loaded out of sight. (See also here.) It is interesting to note that the Static Bakery at Welwyn was the first to employ ATS (Auxiliary Territorial Service) female bakers, later to be superseded by WRACs (Women’s Royal Army Corps), RASC personnel being used only for heavy work and to administer the unit. The numbers employed in each bakery varied from fifteen men and eighty-nine women in 1944 to forty-one men and seventy-two women in 1945. (With acknowledgements to the Felbridge & District History Group) Mobile Field Bakeries“An army marches on its stomach” is a saying that has been attributed to both Napoleon and Frederick the Great. Following the difficulties of feeding British troops in the Crimea, the British Authorities investigated the introduction of a mobile bread oven and it is understood that experimental trials were held c1858. However, for various reasons the Army did not approve this unit. It is thought that the first approved British pattern was a dry heat unit mounted on a four-wheel carriage (wagon), probably in 1862. With the great success of his stopped-end steam tubes and his father’s history of selling baking ovens to the military it is not surprising that in 1866 Loftus Perkins used this technology to produce a horse-drawn steam oven to feed troops on the march which was exhibited at the Paris Exhibition in 1867.
By 1874, fifty-six of these ovens, known to the British Tommy as the
'Polly Perkins', had been supplied to the British Army, others being
purchased by the Prussian and Spanish governments. They served in the
Ashanti Wars, the Sudan campaign and the Boer War. As will be seen later,
improved models, employing the same method of baking, were still being
produced in WW2. It is clear, however, that the military mobile or travelling
oven was not a Perkins invention (see here). In his book - "Wartime
at Baker Perkins Westwood Works" - Ivor Baker remembers
- "We
were complimented by the Ministry of Supply not only on the quality
and quantity of our work but also upon our economical cost of production
and we like believing that we merited those compliments. There
was, however, one important item of war-making equipment - not
in itself an engine of destruction - in which our own particular
genius was applied, viz., in the design and manufacture of the Mobile
Bakery. "The problem presented to the designer of a Mobile Bakery can
be very simply stated, but the solution depended upon a wide knowledge
of bread-making such as only we possess and upon our generations of experience
in manufacturing equipment not only calculated, but definitely to be
relied upon, to give a certain result - consistently - economically,
and faithfully beyond a peradventure". "A Field Bakery Unit must be a complete bread-making unit. It must be equally mobile in the event of attack or of rapid advance. It must produce loaves, which besides being palatable and nourishing, will stand up to the inevitable rough handling of Service conditions and finally it must not falter under usage of a kind that no normal bakery plant ever has to endure."
Baker Perkins Mobile Bread Making Machinery Unit and Mobile Oven More information on the Mobile Field Bakeries - including how the individual
parts were arranged under canvas to form a complete bakery - can be found here. Unfortunately, so far we have been unable to locate more than a small
amount of paperwork detailing something of the process used to develop
Angier Perkins' "Polly Perkins" oven into the complete Mobile
Bakery which served the Allies so well in WW2. It was a product of Westwood
Works which turned out a total of 205 Bread Making Machinery units (mounted
on trailers) and 649 Field Bakery Ovens (mounted on trailers) during
WW2. In addition, Baker Perkins delivered 954 of the transportable type
of Field Oven known since 1866 as the "Polly Perkins," We
expect to be able to add to this record in the next few months. As an interesting aside, Gordon
Steels spent about six months of his apprenticeship wiring up Mobile
Bakery Trailers under the direction of Colin (Bocky) Bird. He recalls: "When finished, under the MoD rules of contract, each trailer
would be inspected independently by a 'Government Inspector' who
would sign the form of acceptance. Unfortunately, the inspector allocated
knew nothing about electrical installations (I believe he was a pre-war
insurance collector), and had to be told that if the needle on the
instrument (a
Megger) pointed in a certain position during a continuity check,
the electrical system was sound. He would then sign the document
of approval without any idea whatsoever of what he had signed for.
Of course, we would check the installation before hand ourselves
to our own satisfaction and so ensure that the installation had
been safely wired up". (See
also "Coping
with Change" - above). By no means all of the mobile bakeries operating in France prior to Dunkirk
were similar to those described above.
Century Machine Company Mobile Bakery At the peak of the American boom in 1929, Baker Perkins Co. Inc. bought
the whole of the assets of the Century
Machine Company of Cincinnati, a manufacturer of bakery equipment
for the smaller wholesale baker. During WW2, Century developed a portable
field bakery. Made at Saginaw,
this consisted of a wheeled oven and bread make-up equipment, not too
dissimilar to that made at Westwood. The company was given the Army/Navy
Award for its success in manufacturing thousands of these for all of
the theatres of war where American troops were serving. This equipment
was still being made at Saginaw a number of years after hostilities ceased. The Baker Perkins Mobile Field Bakeries produced at Peterborough during
WW2 were not only used to feed the Troops, but helped to feed the civilian
population where commercial bakeries had been put out of action by enemy
bombing. Operating in two shifts of eight hours each, the large units
were capable of baking the daily bread ration for a full division of
16,000 men. It is understood that the Baker Perkins Mobile Bread Bakery
was still being manufactured for some years after the end of hostilities
and a number were supplied to Middle Eastern countries.  WW2 Trailer-mounted Westwood built Bread Making Machinery Unit and Mobile Field Oven  Ready to feed the troops Non-Military ActivitiesThe Friends Ambulance Unit in WW1In the words of Augustus Muir “To the Bakers, with their firm adherence to Quaker principles, war brought deep distress”. However, at the outbreak of hostilities they were convinced that ambulance services would be woefully inadequate. With a readiness to aid those who suffered, it was realised that offering such services could save many lives whilst enabling conscientious objectors to make a vital contribution. A group of young Quakers, including two sons of Joseph Allen Baker, Allan Richard and Philip John (later known as Philip Noel Baker), went to the Quaker Centre at Jordans, in Buckinghamshire, and organised the famous Friends Ambulance Unit. There was no conscription then so none of them had to get involved - their response came from their commitment to participating in a non-violent way. With the help of others, they trained a body of sixty Quakers in the
skills required of ambulance units on active service at the front and
soon had taken their unit to the last corner of Belgium that remained
unoccupied. It was not long before the unit won praise for its
efficient and well-ordered action. Allan was forced to return
to the Willesden Works but Philip went on to organise the ambulance unit
for the Italian front. A third brother, Joseph Samuel held different views on war from those of the rest of his family and against his father's will, joined the Leinster Regiment, rising to the rank of Major before being severely wounded. Neither the British Red Cross nor the army was keen on involving independent and pacifist volunteers but the situation changed dramatically with the collapse of the Belgian Army in late October 1914. The FAU was supplied with equipment and supplies and a party of 43, led by Philip Baker left for Belgium. The unit set up their administrative quarters near to Dunkirk but a typhoid epidemic that winter led to the establishment of the first of four hospitals, the Queen Alexandra, at Dunkirk. The FAU expanded as needs increased and many non-Quakers joined. This led to the running of French ambulance convoys, in 1915 the running of ambulance trains and the addition of two hospital ships in early 1916. Four hospitals were set up in England, two in Quaker premises in York and Birmingham and two in London. When, in 1917, the United States entered the War, a number of Americans
joined the FAU. There were eventually at least eight hospitals in France
and Belgium staffed by the Unit. By the end of the War in 1918
there were 640 men working on the European mainland with a further 720
men working in Britain. The Friends Ambulance Unit in WW2When war began on September 3rd, 1939, the Friends Ambulance Unit was immediately re-formed, to provide opportunities for active service for conscientious objectors. (Source - www.quakersintheworld.org/quakers-in-action/278) We have found no evidence that any member of the Baker family was directly involved in the FAU in WW2. Interestingly enough, Philip. J. Noel Baker - MP for Derby since 1936 - served as Secretary of State for Air from 1946 and as Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of War Transport from 1942 to 1945. As an aside, service in the FAU was a vocation rather than an alternative
employment: food, clothing and pocket money of 25 shillings a month were
provided, as against the Army Private’s 75 shillings and the miner’s
280 shillings. Sixteen men and one woman lost their lives while
in the Unit, a death rate proportionately higher than in the Army up
until June 1944. The Friends Ambulance Unit ceased operations on June
30th 1946. Conscientious Objectors and Convalescent SoldiersAny discussion about the War and WW1 in particular soon turns
to the subject of conscientious objectors and convalescent soldiers.
The connection between wounded soldiers and the sterling work by Allan
Baker and Philip Noel Baker in creating and developing the Friends Ambulance
Unit is obvious but we have so far been unable to discover any other
major connection with Baker Perkins personnel. However, we were approached
recently by a researcher interested in a Quaker who served in the Friends
Ambulance Unit in France, was caught in a bomb blast and returned to
England suffering from shell shock and loss of memory. This gentleman
is believed to have been sent with his family to Tower Wood in Burnham
Beeches to convalesce. The 100 acres of Tower Wood was owned by William
King Baker, who, being sentimental about his Canadian origins, with his
sons and a hired man, felled some trees and built a cabin. Conditions
were said to be very basic but it is understood that the first family
was joined by a number of other shell shocked soldiers. More details
are emerging and a fuller account will appear on this website later. Unfortunately, during WW1 the general public and women in particular
caused much bad feeling by handing out white feathers to soldiers out
of uniform who happened to be on leave or recovering from war injuries. This
caused much unhappiness. Here is one of many similar stories:- "One such was Private Ernest Atkins who was on leave from
the Western
Front. He was riding a tram when he was presented with a white feather
by a girl sitting behind him. He smacked her across the face with his
pay book saying: "Certainly I'll take your feather back to the
boys at Passchendaele.
I'm in civvies because people think my uniform might be lousy, but if
I had it on I wouldn't be half as lousy as you." [7]
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