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patronising a fish & chip shop have no problem telling their
neighbours they are off to the tripe merchants. When
Dorothy Sayers sent Lord Peter Wimsey out for a fish
& chip supper in 1927 it was an act of Bohemian bravado.
Other fish publication columnists followed Chatchip’s lead
and used fish-related puns as nom de plumes. These writers
going by names like Molly Codling and Friar Tuck are
without doubt responsible for why fish & chip shops along
with hairdressers are suckers for a silly name. The Cod
Father, Your Plaice or Mine etc. It wouldn’t work all along
the High Street. Just imagine Piles & Potions the chemists
or Bones & Boxes the undertakers!
A Touch of Class
Early fish & chip ranges had been simple affairs, coal fed
and rather like an old copper for boiling up sheets only with
two cauldrons, one for fish and one for chips. The only form
of ventilation available was a brick chimney so these ranges
faced the wall with the smoke going up the chimney and the
frier working with his back to his customers.
The Edwardians eager to change attitudes to the fish supper
really went to town on new classier designs. Elaborately
ornate fish & chip ranges and shop interiors sprang up
seemingly inspired by Wild West saloon bars. Ranges
started sporting etched glass mirrors, mosaics and Dutch
tiles. Some were even fitted with holders for Aspidistras or
palms. Beautiful mobile chippies as intricate and romantic as
gypsy caravans appeared after dark in select neighbourhoods
to feed all the coachmen and footmen who’d be waiting
outside mansion receptions. Efforts made to improve the
image of fish & chips also included the introduction of
traditional white coat in the 1920s.
Below: One of just two surviving Edwardian ranges (Beamish)
would attend the Great London Fisheries Exhibition
held in 1883. For more of the fascinating Mrs. Burdett
Coutts do take a look at the write up all about our tour
called Faith, Hope & Charity, which tells the story of
philanthropy, on page 22 of this edition of
The Kettle.
Fish & Chips Fights Back
By 1910 there were more than 25,000 fish & chip shops
across the country but it was by no means plain sailing
for the fish supper. Even that champion of the working
classes John Burns, who had fought tooth and nail for the
Docker’s Tanner, came out against the fish frying trade.
As President of the Local Government Board in 1911
he scheduled fish frying as an offensive trade under the
1875 Public Health Act alongside bone boilers and gut
scrapers. It was not delisted until 1940 when it suited
the war effort to encourage as many new vendors of
this cheap nutritious food as possible.
Fish friers needed champions and in 1913 the British
National Federation of Fish Friers was founded. They
worked hard alongside the established fish & chip
media (yes, media, plural!) to promote and improve
the image of the trade, which was still seen as rather
common. Here’s Professor of Fish & Chips John
Walton again:
“In the early part of the twentieth century, there was even an
official medical and social literature denigrating fish and chips
as a terrible diet. It was on the basis that the working classes
did not know what was good for them so that, if they liked
something, it had to be bad.”
The columnist William Loftas of The Fish Gazette who
went by the name Chatchip wrote that in a good class
neighbourhood people who’d rather die than admit to