Feeding the City

Abstract

This chapter explores some of the ways in which the men and women of a Hertfordshire market town, St Albans, coped with the shortages, price rises and ever-expanding bureaucracy that surrounded the feeding of themselves and their families during the First World War. Producers, shopkeepers and consumers all had their own particular difficulties to face, and as the impact of the war was felt in every farmhouse, shop and kitchen, questions of fairness were brought to the fore in a way that demanded attention from those charged with keeping the nation and the city fed.