Aerated Bread Company facts for kids
An Aerated Bread Shop in Highways and Byways of London (1902)
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| Public | |
| Industry | Bakery, Restaurant |
| Fate | Acquired by Allied Bakeries in 1955 |
| Successor | Allied Bakeries |
| Founded | London, England (1862) |
| Founder | Dr. John Dauglish |
| Defunct | 1955 |
| Headquarters |
London, England
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United Kingdom
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Number of locations
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250 tea shops (1923) |
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Area served
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Worldwide |
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Key people
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Dr. John Dauglish (Founder) Benjamin Ward Richardson (Director) |
| Products | Baked goods, Teas, "Greasy spoon" offerings |
| Owner | Associated British Foods |
The Aerated Bread Company Ltd (often called A.B.C.) was a British company based in London. It's best known for its many tea rooms around the world. However, it actually started in 1862 as a bakery. Dr. John Dauglish created it, using a new way to make bread. The tea rooms began just two years later, in 1864.
Contents
The A.B.C. Story: From Bread to Tea Shops
How A.B.C. Began
The Aerated Bread Company Ltd was started in 1862 by Dr. John Dauglish (1824–1866). It became a public company, meaning its shares could be bought and sold on the London Stock Exchange. When the company first offered its shares, many people thought it would fail. But its shares, which started at £1 each, grew a lot in value over the years. By 1898, they were worth £12 each, showing how successful the company had become.
The Amazing Bread-Making Method
Dr. John Dauglish was a doctor who studied chemistry. He wasn't happy with the bread he found, so he started to make his own. He discovered a new way to make bread rise without using yeast.
Instead of yeast, he used carbon dioxide gas. He dissolved this gas in water, then mixed it into the dough. This method had many benefits:
- It was much cleaner because workers didn't need to touch the dough as much.
- It was faster, taking only about 30 minutes instead of 8-10 hours.
- It saved money because it used all the good parts of the wheat.
- The bread was considered healthier because it didn't need extra ingredients to stop yeast problems.
Dr. Dauglish got a patent for his new method in 1856. Many doctors and health experts praised his bread. It was even used in hospitals because it was seen as very healthy.
This new method made bread cheaper to produce. When A.B.C. started selling its bread, other bakeries had to lower their prices to compete. Some traditional bakers even tried to make fun of A.B.C. bread by advertising their own as "the bread with the gin in it," because their method produced a tiny bit of alcohol (which usually disappeared when baked).
A.B.C.'s first bakery was in Islington, London. Many people, including Benjamin Ward Richardson, who later became a director of the company, believed Dauglish's method was the best way to make bread on a large scale. They said it was cleaner, easier for workers, and produced healthier, more nutritious bread.
Sadly, Dr. Dauglish's health got worse, and he passed away in 1866. But his company continued to grow and succeed for many years after him. Eventually, newer, faster methods like the Chorleywood bread process became popular for making most of the bread in the UK.
A.B.C. Tea Shops: A Safe Place for Women
A.B.C. became famous for its chain of self-service tea shops. The first one opened in 1864 at London's Fenchurch Street railway station. The idea came from a manager who was already giving free tea and snacks to customers. The company decided to open tea rooms to earn more money for its owners.
These tea rooms became very important for women in the Victorian era. They were one of the first public places where women could eat alone or with female friends without needing a man with them. Before this, it was often not seen as proper for unescorted women to be in public restaurants, especially those with bars.
A.B.C. tea shops were seen as safe and respectable. For example, in 1899, they were recommended to women attending a big international meeting in London.
However, there were concerns about how the company treated its female employees. Some people felt the workers were not paid fairly, even though the company was making a lot of money. At company meetings, some directors tried to get better benefits for the "girls" working in the shops, like more meals or higher pay.
At its busiest in 1923, A.B.C. had 150 shops in London and 250 tea shops in total. It was one of the biggest chains, second only to J. Lyons and Co.
Many famous people visited A.B.C. tea shops. The playwright George Bernard Shaw often mentioned eating there in his diaries. The artist Stass Paraskos even worked as a pot washer at an A.B.C. tea shop when he first arrived in London in 1953.
The End of A.B.C.'s Independence
The Aerated Bread Company stopped being an independent company in 1955. Its operations in Australia had already closed in 1951. The British tea shops and bakeries were bought by Allied Bakeries, a large company led by W. Garfield Weston. Allied Bakeries already owned other famous food businesses.
After the purchase, A.B.C. continued to operate for a while, with a big bakery in Camden Town, London. But eventually, the A.B.C. name disappeared when the company fully closed in 1982. The bakery building was torn down and replaced by a supermarket and housing. Today, you might only see old, faded signs of the Aerated Bread Company on some buildings.
A.B.C. Tea Rooms in Books and Stories
The A.B.C. tea shops were so well-known that they appeared in many books and stories from that time. This shows how much a part of daily life they were.
- In The Secret Adversary by Agatha Christie, a character named Tommy goes to an A.B.C. shop for a meal after escaping from spies.
- The poet T. S. Eliot mentioned A.B.C. shops in his poem "A Cooking Egg," describing crowds of people there.
- In The End of the Affair by Graham Greene, the main character, Maurice Bendrix, visits an A.B.C. shop twice.
- William Somerset Maugham mentions A.B.C. shops in his novels Cakes and Ale and Of Human Bondage, showing characters having tea or meals there.
- In The Old Man in the Corner by Baroness Orczy, a "teahouse detective" meets a journalist in an A.B.C. tea shop to discuss crime cases.
- Even Bram Stoker's famous novel Dracula mentions Jonathan Harker stopping at an A.B.C. for tea.
- In Night and Day and Jacob's Room by Virginia Woolf, characters visit A.B.C. shops for various reasons, from writing letters to simply observing life.
- H. G. Wells's novel Tono-Bungay describes a character having tea in an Aerated Bread Shop.
These mentions show that A.B.C. tea shops were common and recognizable places in British life for many years.
