I don’t know about you but, when I have a fizzy drink, I really don’t think about how it is made or the history of its production. It comes from a factory … we buy it at the supermarket … end of story.
Well now; there’s a bit more to it than that (as you may have guessed).
When I came across this entry in Female Occupations: Women’s Employment 1850-1950 by Margaret Ward. http://www.countrysidebooks.co.uk/book-catalogue-book-details.php?book=1477 I thought it was worth sharing.
I was particularly taken with the photograph accompanying the text. I never envisioned the making of fizzy drinks to be a particularly dangerous occupation – it just goes to show that often there is far more to the development of a product or a job than you realise!
AERATED WATER BOTTLER
Carbonated drinks (using carbon dioxide dissolved under pressure) had been available since the end of the 18th century and were in growing demand throughout the Victorian period; fizzy soft drinks and water were popular in particular with the Temperance movement as alternatives to alcohol. Manufacturers can be found all over the country – Hull, for instance, had over 20 factories producing ginger beer, lemonade, etc by the 1890s. Women were employed in the bottling plants and this could be hazardous work.
In 1900 the Harmsworth Magazine published an article by W.J. Wintle that appeared under the skull-festooned title of ‘Daring Death to Live: The most dangerous trades in the world’. It included the women who filled glass bottles with aerated water or soft drinks for R. White & sons at their Camberwell factory. To protect the women from flying glass, ‘All the bottlers, wirers, and labellers wear masks of strong wire gauze, while their arms are protected with full length gauntlets, so constructed as to cover the palm of the hand and the space between thumb and fourth finger. It has been found by experience that a knitted woollen gauntlet of thick texture answers much better than one of leather or india-rubber. The bottling machines are so arranged that the bottle is contained in a very strong wire cage during the process of filling.’ The most dangerous point, however, was when the newly-filled bottle was taken out of the machine by hand.
So, next time you have a cola or a can of lemonade, or if you're tipping a tonic into your gin this weekend, spare a thought for the pioneering factory workers of the fizzy drinks industry and raise a glass in their honour!
Cheers :)
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