Woolton’s war

In wartime the housekeeping is a nightmare. While fighting Napoleon in Spain the Duke of Wellington sent an infuriated letter to the government in Whitehall. He complained that they had asked him to account for a petty cash deficit of one shilling and ninepence, and a ‘hideous confusion as to the number of jars of raspberry jam issued to one cavalry regiment during a sandstorm…’.

The Duke, more concerned with training soldiers to fight, would not have got on too well with Lord Woolton, the British government’s Minister of Food in the second world war, whose office had the most onerous catering job in history. Woolton, born Fred Marquis in 1883 to working-class parents and raised in Salford, Manchester, was appointed by Neville Chamberlain in April 1940 to oversee, purchase and control distribution of food for every British man, woman and child — 41 million people. He also had oversight of the supply to the then British colonies.

Woolton, who had been ennobled as a successful retailer before the war, admitted he was apprehensive on taking the job. Yet it was not so much duty as can-do that saw this frugal, health-conscious and undeniably brilliant businessman give up his retailing interests and become one of the leading ‘generals’ on the Home Front.

While reading William Sitwell’s Eggs or Anarchy I confess to being amazed that Woolton’s story has never been examined in any detail before. We know pretty much all there is to know about Winston Churchill; the military leaders, and their battles have been picked over time and again — but Woolton’s extraordinary feat has been underplayed, even neglected.

With the help of new access to Woolton’s diaries and those of his wife Maud, Sitwell recounts the many trials and frustrations encountered by the Minister of Food, but also his successes.