Sweet sales' sour conclusion (From Bradford Telegraph and Argus)

Sweet sales' sour conclusion

8:26am Thursday 4th December 2008 in

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It was a bitterly cold autumn morning in 1858 when a supply of peppermints was delivered to a stall in Bradford’s Green Market.

By the end of the week the city was mourning the sudden deaths of 20 children, with 200 more people seriously ill.

But this was no deadly disease sweeping through the slums of Victorian Bradford. The cause was traced back to the sweet stall, where peppermints laced with arsenic had been sold to an unsuspecting public. Due to a terrible mistake, arsenic had been added to the sweet mixture instead of a harmless substance known as ‘daft’, used as a cheap sugar substitute.

The notorious peppermint lozenge poisonings led to the introduction of legislation controlling the adulteration of food.

Now, 150 years later, the tragic chapter of Bradford’s history has been brought to life in a storytelling session for schoolchildren.

The tale was narrated by Bradford actor Don Crann, who has teamed up with Bradford Central Library to try and get children interested in local history through storytelling.

Youngsters from St Joseph’s Catholic Primary and Newby Primary listened as Don, wearing Victorian costume, told the grisly tale.

“It went down so well, Don really brought it to life,” says Sue Caton, acting senior information manager at the Central Library’s local studies department. “The children found the story fascinating; their faces were a picture.

“Afterwards they looked at old newspaper articles about the sweet poisoning then went to look for Rimmingtons chemist in the city centre, which was mentioned in the story.”

Sue says she and Don plan to hold regular storytelling sessions at the library next year.

“We hope that by telling children stories about Bradford’s past they’ll become interested in local history and in the library’s research facilities,” she says.

Don took on the role of Mark Burran, a Bradford man who lost his children in the sweet poisoning.

“The first I knew about it was when I was in the library doing some research about Victorian Bradford,” says Don, who takes part in local history walks in the city, organised by Yarn Spinners. “Sue asked if I’d be interested in storytelling for children.

“When I heard about the sweet poisoning I was fascinated. I read up on it and was like a dog with a bone. The library has excellent research facilities. You can find out all sorts of things at the touch of a button.

“I wrote a version of the story from Mark Burran’s point of view. The children were so attentive. It was wonderful seeing them caught up in something that happened 150 years ago. With it being about poisoned sweets, it really caught their imagination.”

A Telegraph & Argus report in 1978, looking back on the case, says the poisoned peppermints were sold by William Hardacre, known as ‘Humbug Willie’, from a stall in Green Market, now the site of Bradford’s Arndale Centre. Hardacre bought the sweets from Joseph Neal, who manufactured cheap confectionery from his works in Stone Street, Bradford, supplying many of the city’s small ‘spice dealers’.

The weather was turning nasty in October, 1858, and there was a demand for peppermint lozenges, but they were relatively expensive to make and the retail price was beyond the means of Bradford’s millworker population.

So Joseph Neal substituted sugar with plaster of Paris, or gypsum, enabling him to offer cheaper lozenges.

On Monday, October 18, one of Neal’s assistants, John Archer, was told to visit Shipley druggist Charles Hodgson for a supply of gypsum, more commonly known as ‘daft.’ Hodgson was ill in bed so his assistant, William Goddard, went upstairs to consult him. He returned with the required amount of ‘daft’, and two days later, at Joseph Neal’s premises, the lozenge mixture was prepared by James Appleton, with all the ‘daft’ added.

That afternoon Appleton became poorly and took to his sick bed for several days, putting it down to a cold. The following Saturday – a busy market day in Bradford – the lozenges were delivered to Humbug Willie’s stall near the Market Tavern. He queried the discoloured sweets, but Neal put it down to a new stock of gum, and offered them for 7½d instead of 8d. Hardacre accepted and put the lozenges on sale for 1½d for 2oz. Later that afternoon Hardacre left the stall, feeling unwell.

Next day police were summoned to a house in Jowett Street, off Brick Lane, the home of Mark Burran, who had given his sons, Orlando, five, and baby John a sweet each from Hardacre’s stall that morning. Surgeon John Bell went to the house, where both boys were seriously ill. By early evening they were dead and Dr Bell suspected poisoning.

Throughout the day police had received reports of people being taken seriously ill all over Bradford. Several deaths, particularly of young children, had been reported and doctors relayed their suspicions to Felix Rimmington, the town’s leading chemist.

They were convinced that the cause of the large-scale poisonings was William Hardacre’s peppermint lozenges.

Police went to Hardacre’s home and found him seriously ill. They recovered the rest of the lozenges and sent a sample to Rimmington. Meanwhile, Joseph Neal told police the ‘daft’ was possibly the suspect ingredient. Goddard was questioned and showed police the cask he had taken the ‘daft’ from.

Hodgson realised, with horror, that it contained arsenic. Goddard had mistakenly used the wrong cask, not noticing the ‘Poison’ label on the arsenic cask. About one-third of each lozenge was arsenic, more than enough to kill.

Police set about informing Bradford about the lozenges; bell-ringers worked through the night, and the city was covered with warning posters. By the following day 12 people had died and 100 were seriously ill. The victims, mainly children, would have suffered terribly.

Hodgson, Goddard and Neal were brought before magistrates and were sent for trial for manslaughter. In the end the case was put down to accidental negligence and the indictments dropped.

The Bradford Observer noted that “the only really criminal thing in the whole affair was what the law could not touch... the practice of adulteration.” The local press called for a renewal of a Bill to prohibit adulteration of food which had been introduced and rejected in Parliament the previous year. The case led to the Adulteration of Food Bill in 1859 and the passing of major legislation in 1860.

“The adulteration of food had been rife – they used to put sand in sugar and brickdust in cocoa,” says Don.

“The positive thing that came out of this terrible chapter of Bradford’s past was that it led to a change in legislation.

“The reason so many foodstuffs were adulterated was poverty,” he adds. “Before telling the story to the children I set the scene of Victorian Bradford, a place where the population had exploded, with many people living in slums. It brought history to life for the children, they were asking lots of questions. Some of them thought I really was Mark Burran – ‘I’m not that old’, I told them!”

Don, a Bradford firefighter-turned-actor who has appeared in TV dramas such as Heartbeat, Coronation Street and Emmerdale, says the tradition of oral storytelling makes history more interesting for children.

Now he’s considering the possibility of turning the Bradford peppermint poisoning into a play. “It would make a great drama,” he says. “Watch this space…”