What is a Milk Dealer

[slewis]

Hi
  Can any one please tell me just what a Milk Dealer is, ? dose he work on a farm, and sell milk, or just a milk man any help would be very much appreciated.
                                  Regards Sue
                 

[stanmapstone]

A dealer is  some one who deals in merchandise, a trader, who sells articles etc. in the same condition in which he has bought them.
A milk-dealer would probably buy the milk wholesale, then sell it direct to the consumer, or to shopkeepers etc.

Stan

[Rabbit B]

very true Stan,

but I would think of them more in terms of milk wholesalers who sell to the milkmen after pasteurising a process developed by Louis Pasteur. http://resources.schoolscience.co.uk/ABPI/history/biography.html#past
Before the war, it was very common to find people having caught TB from drinking raw milk, then in the late 40/50's the Government set up a TB monitoring scheme and pasteurised the milk, and introduced the compulsory testing of all dairy herds!

Rabbit B 

[slewis]

Hi
 Thank you both for your help.
                 Kind regards Sue

[Rabbit B]

You are most welcome Sue,

Rabbit B

[Christopher]

The guys in the cart look as though they worked for a milk dealer

http://picture.stockton.gov.uk/photos/t8967.aspx

[Rabbit B]

Hi Christopher,

Those were the days, we used to have our milk delivered like that, horse and cart I mean, that horse stopped at every house and never needed driving.

I also remember driving in a pony and trap during the war with the milk churns which had to be left by the farm gate half a mile away, so that the tanker could pick up the milk!
That was when we went away because my Sister had been seriously ill and we had to go to the country for her health.

Rabbit B 

[stanmapstone]

very true Stan,

a process developed by Louis Pasteur.

Rabbit B 

I am well aware of the pasteurization process, and Louis Pasteur The bulk pasteurization of milk was not attempted in the UK until the 1900s by the Bath & Somerset Dairy Co. Ltd. according to a report in The Times 12th Feb. 1900. Commercial pasteurizing machines were not introduced in the USA until 1895. 
Until the advent of the railways milk was supplied from cows actually kept in the towns, or just outside, by cow keepers, and the milk bought from them by Milk Dealers. Eventually "milk trains" brought the milk from farms to the towns in 50 gallon churns, from the 1850s using cold water cooling apparatus.I would expect a wholesale Dealer in Milk would be different at the start of the 19th. cent. to a one at the start of the 20th.
From a number of references in Google Books it appears that what I said originally A milk-dealer would probably buy the milk wholesale, then sell it direct to the consumer, or to shopkeepers etc. is correct.

The inhabitants of towns, and of the suburban districts, we all know, is at the mercy of the milk dealer; the milk he procures is rarely of the best quality. British Farmer's Magazine 1852

A milkman http://www.rootschat.com/links/032n/

Stan

[Christopher]

There were five Milk Marketing Boards ...
1. England and Wales
2. The Scottish Milk Marketing Board
3. The Aberdeen and District Milk Marketing Board
4. The North of Scotland Milk Marketing Board
5. The Milk Marketing Board for Northern Ireland

The Boards were established in the Agricultural Marketing Acts of 1931 and 1933 (1955 in Northern Ireland). The DEFRA website states that in 1943 there were 100,000 producers of milk. The boards guaranteed the price of milk to all producers (about 12d per gallon in 1934 depending on quality).

When the Boards were abolished in 1994, there were around 28,000 producers in England and Wales.  There are now around 13,778.