‘One half flour, and half potatoes, also make a very excellent bread.’ (Times, July 22, 1795.)
‘The writer of this paragraph has seen the bread that is eaten at his Majesty’s table. It consists of two sorts only, the one composed of wheaten flour and rye mixed; the other is half wheaten flour, half potato flour. If ever example deserved imitation, it is this.’ (Times, July 30, 1795.)
People were requested to discontinue the use of hair powder, which was made of starch obtained from wheat, and very many did so; in fact, this movement extended to the Army, for we read in the Times, Feb. 10, 1795: ‘In consequence of the scarcity of wheat, arising partly from such quantities of it being used for hair powder, several regiments have, very patriotically, discontinued the use of hair powder, which, in these instances, was generally nothing but flour.’
Potatoes came very much to the fore as a substitute for wheat, and the Parliamentary Board of Agriculture proposed a premium of one thousand pounds to the person who would grow the largest breadth of potatoes on lands never before applied to the culture of that plant.
The City authorities watched the bakers narrowly as to short weight and amerced them 5s. per ounce short, one man having to pay, with costs, £106 5s. on 420 ounces deficient in weight. Wheat in August, 1795, was 13s. 6d. per bushel, and the price of the quartern loaf should then have been 1s. 6d., as it was 1s. 3d. in January, 1796, when wheat was 11s. 6d. per bushel. It fell rapidly after harvest and in December, 1796, was 7s. 4d. per bushel. It must be remembered that money then had twice its present value.
In 1800 there was another scarcity, and in February of that year a Bill passed into law which enacted ‘That it shall not be lawful for any baker, or other person, or persons, residing within the cities of London and Westminster, and the Bills of Mortality, and within ten miles of the Royal Exchange, after the 26th day of February, 1800, or residing in any part of Great Britain after the 4th day of March, 1800, to sell, or offer to expose for sale, any bread, until the same shall have been baked 24 hours at the least.’
The average price of wheat this year was 14s. 1d. per bushel, and in July, just before harvest, it rose to 16s. 10d. or 134s. 8d. per quarter, and other provisions were very dear. The people were less patient than in 1795-6, and in August and September several riots took place at Birmingham, Oxford, Nottingham, Coventry, Norwich, Stamford, Portsmouth, Sheffield, Worcester, and many other places. The markets were interrupted, and the populace compelled the farmers, etc., to sell their provisions at a low price.
At last these riots extended to London, beginning in a very small way. Late at night on Saturday, September 13, or early on Sunday, the 14th, two large, written placards were pasted on the Monument, the text of which was—
‘Bread will be sixpence the quartern, if the people will assemble at the Corn Market on Monday.
‘FELLOW COUNTRYMEN,