Fruit Farming in the Vale of Evesham until early 1930s - A brief history
The Vale of Evesham is a flat and fertile area in South Worcestershire flanked on the east by the Cotswold Hills and intersected by the River Avon which flows westward from Evesham to Pershore, joining the River Severn at Tewkesbury.
The fertile soil of the flood plain combined with mild winters, rainfall that is well distributed throughout the year and summers with a narrow temperature range lends itself well to growing fruit and vegetables.
Fruit and vegetable growing probably began with the Benedictine monks of Evesham Abbey. Perry pear and cider apple orchards were established and by 1870 were produced on a large scale with Worcestershire cider and perry well known across the country.
The expansion of the fruit and farming industry in the Vale was closely associated with the industrial developments in the Midlands and South Wales, greatly assisted by the development of the railways. Evesham was served by two lines, the LMS (London, Midland and Scottish) and GWR (Great Western Railway). The companies designed ventilated wagons to aid transportation of perishable items. Fruit and vegetables loaded onto trains in the afternoon in Worcestershire could now arrive fresh and ready for markets in London, Bristol, the Midlands and north of England by 6am the following morning.
Apple and pear production in the Vale had dropped after 1900 as the demand for cider had fallen and it proved to be no longer profitable. By 1910, plums were the major crop in the Vale. The Ministry of Agriculture records that Mr G.F. Bomford planted the first commerical plum plantation at Atch Lench in 1881-1882 following 2 years of disastrous sheep farming and failed corn crops. Bomford favoured the Pershore Yellow Egg Plum (discovered between 1822 and 1827) by George Crooke and his son Thomas. The Pershore Yellow Egg became the most commonly grown plum followed by the Martin's Purple Pershore Plum (discovered in 1877 by Mr Walter Martin of Drakes Broughton), then the Victoria, Czar and Prolific varieties. In the 1920s and 30s these 5 varieties accounted for two thirds of the total area of plums cultivated in the Vale.
The Pershore Yellow Egg is a prolific cropper with a long season that can be picked before it is ripe. The fruit is firm so it can be transported long distances without deterioating and losing its appearance. But it is a poor dessert plum that lends itself to cooking, canning and jam making.
Similarly the Purple Plum is only really suitable for cooking, canning and jam making. The Purple Plum was particularly popular with fruit farmers in the 1920s and by the 1930s was processed in large quantities by the canning industry.
The Victoria is a good all-round plum and was in great demand by the dessert and domestic market in the 1920s and 1930s. This drove the price up making it a more expensive variety for the jam and canning industry. The Czar was also priced out of the canning market, it is a large round fruit so the can would contain fewer fruits.
Between 1916 and 1920 landowners sold considable areas of land, the buyers often willing to pay high prices to secure the land for fruit farming. In one particular case a plantation of plums near Pershore changed hands at approximately £200 per acre[1]. Production was particularly important during the food shortages of the First World War when plums and fruit from the Vale were transported by train throughout the country.
Fruit grown in the Vale in the 1920s and 30s also included varieties of gooseberries, red and blackcurrants, strawberries and raspberries. Acres of strawberries were solely grown for the canning industry with the soft and over-ripe fruits going to the jam factories. Plantations of plums were often underplanted with gooseberries and currants and in season, tens of tons of fruit would be picked every day.
Fruit and vegetable harvesting was done by casual labour. Around Pershore pickers worked in distinct groups, the 'locals', the 'Worcesters' and the 'Dudleys' (labourers from the Black Country). An interesting British Pathe newsreel filmed on 16th August 1937 has various shots of men, women and children picking plums in an orchard near Evesham. Mrs W.R. Deakin (Mary Jane Hartley Deakin) pictured left with fruit pickers on a Deakin fruit farm in the Vale of Evesham).
By the late 1920s fruit-growers also had to compete with much cheaper imports and new 'exotic' fruits from Europe and South Africa which were more carefully graded and attractively packed (in small boxes rather than wicker pots, the 'Pershore Pot'). Foreign imported fruit arrived on the market 3 weeks before British varieties and importers were therefore able to command higher prices. Imported plums could reach the British market by the middle of July whereas home-produced plums would not appear until early August.
The demand for local gooseberries for jam making had started to decline after 1914 with the introduction of commercial pectin. The use of commerical pectin meant that the jam factories could use pulped fruit which could be imported more economically in larger quantities and earlier, before English varieties were ready, thereby extending the jam making season. The increase in the use of imported pulped fruit saw the fall in demand by the jam factories for local soft and over-ripe fruit leaving local farmers with an excess supply that was often left to rot. 1926 in particular saw a significant increase in imported pulped fruit for jam making. An unfortunate rumour that English crops had been destroyed by frost added to the demand for foreign orders that year.
The onset of the industrial depression of 1929-30, also contributed to the decline of the fruit and vegetable farming in the Vale. Before the First World War, there was an excellent demand for the Vale's vegetables and fruit in South Wales, but that market, due to the general depression of industry in South Wales, declined. Farmers turned to markets in Birmingham and London but those markets were already saturated and many were left with a surplus.
1930 saw particularly heavy losses in the fruit-growing industry across England. Commander Sir William Bolton Eyres Monsell, Conservative MP for South Worcestershire at the time, during a House Commons debate on the state of the fruit-growing industry in the November of that year, described the 'tragic state in which the industry has been this summer' around Evesham. A glut of fruit led to acres of fruit left to rot on the trees and unemployment amongst fruit pickers for the first time. Land values had fallen since their post-war high and growers' costs had increased. Growers across the country were not making any money, consumers were paying too higher prices and the middlemen, the intermediaties between the grower and the consumer, were making most of the profit. The fruit, before it reached the consumer could go through as many as 20 different handlings including the commission salesman who charged commission at percentage rates and a flat fee when prices were low, the wholesale buyer and wholesale and retail dealers. In the summer of 1930, Pershore Yellow Egg plums were reportedly selling for 1s 6d per pot in the markets at Evesham (a pot held 72lbs and there were about 10 Pershore Plums to the lb). The plums cost 9d to pick so being sold at 1s 6d did not leave very much profit for the grower.
Freight rates were also high. The railways advertised in foreign trade journals to capture the growing overseas market and introduced lower rates for freight trains carrying fruit from the ports up to London for sale at Covent Garden. This saw trains with English fruit being held up in sidings with the result that by the time the fruit got to market it had started to perish and therefore commanded lower prices that the foreign imported fruit.
Canning increased in Britain in the early 1930s but so did the volume of imported canned fruit. In 1931 the total imports of canned fruit into Britain had risen to 2,198,000 cases, out of these the United States sent 1,888,000, Canada 25,000, Australia 109,000, and South Africa sent 5,000[2]. Imports of pulped fruits also rose and many jams were made of foreign pulped fruit or preserved fruit. Concerns were raised about the quality of foreign preserved jam fruit as it was preserved using sulphur dioxide, often for up to 2 years before being boiled down and made into jam which could then be sold as 'home-made jam'. Pressure was placed on the Government at the time to bring in legislation to require that jam made from preserved or foreign fruit be labelled as such to encourage the sales of canned English fruit and jams made of English fruit.
The English fruit-growing industry seemed to have either very good years or very bad years but over time was unable to compete with overseas growers and suppliers. Following the November 1930 debate in The House of Commons it was resolved 'That this House deplores the present condition of the Fruit-growing Industry and the heavy losses incurred by growers, and calls upon His Majesty's Government to put into effect schemes which, without penalising the consuming public, will secure to the grower an economic return for his crop'[3]. The Government proposed help under the Agricultural Marketing Bill (The Agricultural Marketing Acts of 1931 and 1933), a producers' board and a standardisation scheme under the National Mark to be applied to jam made from home-grown fruit to also include plums and bottled fruit. The Import Duties Act 1932 also introduced a tariff on most imported fruit and vegetables.
By 1934 supplies of British plums increased as newer plantations across the Vale had come into fruiting but the demand for the fruit was still at a very low level and the demand for plums from British canning factories had fallen. Many orchards and plantations across the Vale closed as the industry continued into decline.
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[1]: Source: A History of Worcestershire Agriculture and Rural Evolution, R.C. Gaut 1939.
[2]: Source: British Food Journal, Vol. 35 Iss: 3
[3]: Source: Hansard, 19 November 1930