Looking back at the early milkmen in Watford, Bushey and Oxhey

Back in the early 1950s, before the era of supermarkets, I recall the Oxhey milkman doing his daily round, delivering returnable glass pint milk bottles with their coloured foil tops. Gold tops for ‘top of the milk’, the creamiest Jersey milk, and silver tops for standard milk. When empty, the householder rinsed the bottles and put them outside for the milkman to collect. Payments were left with the weekly bill under the milk bottles and not a coin or note my mother left ever went missing. You did, however, have to watch out for small birds that sometimes pecked through the foil. No plastic or TetraPak containers then, no waste packaging and no credit cards.

I can still see the genial milkman with his milk float (cart) and horse turning into Wilcot Avenue from Bucks Avenue. Smartly dressed in a long white overall and peaked hat, wearing a leather bag for cash payments across his shoulders, his float was filled with clinking bottles. His friendly horse was always well-groomed and wore blinkers on its bridle, cutting off peripheral vision but ensuring a distraction-free journey.

W. J. Clarke Dairy (Image: Pictorial Record – Watford & Bushey, 1915)

Back further in time to around 1892, the newly-founded Langley Road Dairy was at the St Albans Road and Langley Road junction. Proprietors Walter J. Clarke and his wife Margaret were members of families long engaged in dairying. When trading in London, his father counted H.R.H. The Duchess of Teck amongst his customers, whilst his wife’s grandfather was the first dairyman with a milk cart in Aberdeen.

The milk sold at their Langley Road Dairy was sourced from Wall Hall, Aldenham, later owned by American financier and investment banker Pierpont Morgan; Bushey Hall Farm, home of Robert Johnston; and Smug Oak Farm at Bricket Wood, home of Herbert Pusey. The Clarke’s speciality was milk for children, whilst cream, fresh butter and eggs were always available. Assisted by sons Walter and Douglas, they owned three horse-drawn milk floats and two hand barrows for the daily delivery of milk in Watford. Walter subsequently became President of the Watford & Bushey District Dairymen’s Association.

T. Lee & Sons (Image: Image: St. John’s Cookery Book, 1911)

In the early 1900s, Thomas Lee of T. Lee & Sons, 43 Queens Road, kept a herd of cows and sold milk locally. Close by, The Watford Dairies at 24 Queens Road and 11 The Parade were an established supplier of milk and other dairy products. Proprietor Thomas D. Morgan, who lived above the business in Queens Road, also sold Eustace Miles Health Foods for adults and infants, claiming that ‘the milk for the nursery is selected by daily analysis to conform with the directions and recommendations of the Physician at the Children’s Hospital.’

In Bushey Heath in the early 1900s, dairy farmer E.T. Whatley of Hive Farm waited daily on families with milk, butter, cream and new-laid eggs, keeping ‘special cows’ for infants’ and invalids’ milk.

Charles Green (Image: Bushey Commercial Directory, 1908)

Dairy farmer Charles Green of 38 High Street, Bushey was ‘a purveyor of high-class dairy produce’ and kept Jersey cows. He sold milk, butter, cream and eggs and made twice daily deliveries to all areas in Bushey. His advertisements stated: ‘The favour of your esteemed patronage is most respectfully solicited’. Politeness and respect were the order of the day. He had come a long way from working as a butcher’s boy at 16 years of age, no doubt helping his cow keeper and dairyman father, Richard Green.

Arthur Hobart of Clapgate Dairy Farm in Herkomer Road, Bushey was also a cow keeper and dairy farmer, assisted by his son John who later emigrated to Hawkes Bay, New Zealand. Arthur and his wife Maud lived nearby at 15 Rudolph Road and delivered milk from the farm twice daily, as well as cream, eggs and butter.

Arthur Hobart (Image: Bushey Commercial Directory, 1908)

A well-known name locally in the 1920s and beyond was Lee, Wiggs & Clarke Ltd., originally established by dairyman and poulterer Mr J. Wiggs in the 19th century. After initially trading from 43 Queen’s Street (later Queens Road), the firm later opened branches at 86 Whippendell Road, 88 St Albans Road, 110 Leavesden Road, 185 High Street and 73 London Road in Oxhey.

By 1931, ‘certified and Grade A tuberculin-tested milk’ was supplied from many local farms, including Oxhey Place Farm, Bushey Hall Farm, Lea Farm and Church Farm in Aldenham. TT-tested milk protected humans against the risk of transfer of bovine tuberculosis.

Lance Aubon of 77 Aldenham Road was a dairyman in the 1940s who grew up at the One Crown Public House in Watford, 156 High Street, where his father Edward was publican. He sold TT-tested milk from Harts Farm in Little Bushey Lane and Bushey House Farm in Bushey High Street.

Other big, albeit national names, were the Co-op and Express Dairy, the latter delivering twice daily from 39 Durban Road East and 12 Market Street; the only names familiar to us today.

• Lesley Dunlop is the daughter of the late Ted Parrish, a well-known local historian and documentary filmmaker. He wrote 96 nostalgic articles for the ‘Evening Post-Echo’ in 1982-83 which have since been published in ‘Echoes of Old Watford, Bushey & Oxhey’, available at www.pastdayspublishing.com and Bushey Museum. Lesley is currently working on ‘Two Lives, Two World Wars’, a companion volume that explores her father’s and grandfather’s lives and war experiences, in which Watford, Bushey and Oxhey’s history will take to the stage once again.