Group holding up card, waiting for potatoes (1917)

  • image IMAGEFORDA150815
RepositoryLibraryShelf
Devon West Country Studies MPh
Illustration Reference
P&D59288
Location
DVD60
Publication Details
Date
1917
Publisher
Scope and Content
Accompanying text from Western Times reads: " There could be no "shadow of doubt" as to the acceptability of the generous gift made by Messrs. Colson and Co. to the needy of Exeter and distributed from the firm's premises (The Mansion House), Cathedral Yard, on Saturday. This well-known Exeter House, having secured a big consignment of tubers from Cambridgeshire, determined to let the citizens share in their good fortune, and devoted no less than 8,000 lbs. weight to be distributed among the poor of the city. [...] The method of distribution adopted by Messrs Colson and Co and its success was a tribute to what foresight and organisation can effect when a practical business house like this gets to work on such a task. The whole proceedings were quiet, orderly, and pleasant in the extreme. The fifteen hundred people each to be given 5lbs of potatoes were suprised by post-card of their good fortune on Saturday. Some of them began to assemble early, but the majority, obeying the explicit instructions, did not come till close upon the advertised hour. Armed with the "potato-tickets" that assured them the gift, they submitted readily to the kindly rule of the police present, who, with the utmost good humour kept them in a queue that reached at one time, round the Cathedral railings from opposite the Mansion House almost to Southerhay. The actual distribution took just half an hour.
Format
Photograph
Dimensions
120x164mm
Series
EPRS; 1380
Note
Published by the Western Times April 5th 1917
Biographical subject
Aspects
Food distribution
Counties
Subjects
Dates
1917