Oxford – a city of parsons and sausages

I was delighted to discover the 1883 recipe above for Oxford Sausages. It is taken from the Victorian Recipe Book ‘Consult Me on How to Cook’, and more recently illustrated by Mollie Picken. The ingredients are pretty much the same as those included by the famous Mrs Beaton in her tome of ‘Household Management’ published in 1861 in which she announced the Oxford version as her ‘ideal sausage’. For this was the era when the Oxford Sausage took star billing. The time when an Oxford Alderman was asked in a Parliamentary committee whether there was anything manufactured in his city, and had answered, “two things, parsons and sausages.”

Dorothy Spreadbury is credited as being the formidable founder of our city’s brand of banger a century earlier. Her apparent likeness is there in an engraving at the front of Thomas Wharton’s compilation of satirical verse, using ‘The Oxford Sausage’ as the title for what he calls ‘a highly spiced’ anthology of political poetry based on University life in the 1700s. But it was her niece Sarah Herbert, (maiden name appropriately Mace, an ingredient sometimes used in early sausage making) who marketed them ready to eat, selling what became a local culinary favourite to her aunt’s recipe, first from her husband’s watchmakers’ shop, and then from premises of her own near The Angel Inn on the High Street. This was the major station for coaches travelling from Oxford to London, destination The Bell Inn in Holborn (an eight-hour journey that then cost 12s and 6d). And this early fast food, went down like – well ‘hot dogs.’

Come October advertisements would be placed in the local press announcing that the sausage season had commenced. For traditionally pigs were reared during the spring and summer months on scraps, later fed on acorns and beechnuts, to be slaughtered in the autumn. And with no refrigeration, even with seasoning and salting, (‘sausage’, literally translated from the Latin means ‘salted’) their period of production was all over by Christmas. 

Here from the Oxford Journal of 1760.

“On Saturday October 11, 1760, Sarah Herbert will begin selling sausages, at John Herbert’s, watchmaker in St Peter’s in the East, in Oxford. All persons she please to favour her with their custom, may depend upon being extremely well served, she having a receipt of the late Dorothy Spreadbury, her aunt.”

Naturally it wasn’t long before she had competition. Charles Dodd, a New College cook declared that he could make them ‘at a moment’s notice’ fresh from The Wheatsheaf further up the High Street. Alden’s (still trading today from Osney Estate) and Lindsey’s (only recently folded) were also amazingly boning and chopping, slicing and stringing at this time. But there were many other names back then; Mr W. Wixon, Mr Timbs, W. Carter, Charles Clark, James Knibbs, Piggott and Sons, JJ Hemmings (one of the first tenants on my street and to whom I owe the title of this blog) to name a few. By 1858 Robson’s Directory lists 109 butchery businesses in Oxford. All offering sausages as well as a vast array of other cuts including what seems to have been a particular favourite, pickled tongues. And by now trading from the Covered Market, a specially designed indoor space divided into avenues which in 1774 had replaced the filthy conditions of the ramshackle stalls that once lined what is now Queen Street (then called Butcher’s Row.) This was governed by a committee of representatives from both town and gown who declared it illegal to sell meat from anywhere else in the city.

Not that this was a rule that could be maintained. An attempt to prosecute John Wilbin for opening his butcher’s shop at 31 St Giles in 1885, ‘three storeys high with extensive frontage’ (now Taylors) had to be abandoned. John was from a long line of butchers and claimed to be a believer in ‘home fed and healthy’ animals. He also produced not just Oxford Sausages from the yard at the back of the shop fitted with the latest sausage and mincing machines.  But Royal Oxford Sausages. By dint of a Royal Warrant. Once a month a bundle of specially wrapped sausages was transported by bike to Oxford Station, from there to Paddington and onwards to Buckingham Palace.

“Nothing succeeds like success” said the Oxford Chronicle in 1903 recording a bumper banger of a week, with sales of John Wilbin’s Royal Oxford Sausage reaching over 10,000 lbs.

Oxford may now be synonymous with its University. It is often remembered for its Oxford bags, Oxford shoes, Oxford marmalade, even Oxford comma. But I like to remember it as the home of the humble Oxford Sausage. And so it is that this week by special delivery I bring you a celebration of the sausage from the archives. A sizzle of sausages if you like. Hurrah. And Bon Appetit.

Main picture: from Picture Oxon and the archives of the Oxfordshire History Centre

Grateful thanks to Malcolm Graham for his help in researching this piece.

Oxford Sausage students with mortarboards and monocles.

Courtesy of The Oxfordshire History Centre: POXO635048

Courtesy of The John Johnson Collection of Printed Ephemera: Oxford Trade 3 (12)

Courtesy of The John Johnson Collection: Oxford Trade 3 (12)

Wilbin’s Oxford Sausages were also sold in this high class grocery store in South Parade in Summertown.

The John Johnson Collection: Oxford Trade Pamphlets 142

Taken form Pike’s ‘Oxford: Views and Reviews’ published in 1897

Taken form Pike’s ‘Oxford: Views and Reviews’ published in 1897

The John Johnson Collection: Oxford Trade 3 (5a)

Taken form Pike’s ‘Oxford: Views and Reviews’ published in 1897

Clark’s ‘Real Oxford Sausages’ in the Covered Market around 1903. Courtesy of Picture Oxon

Adverts were put in the papers in the autumn to announce that sausage making had commenced. Like this from the sausage maker JJ Hemmings and one of the first tenants in my street.

Oxford University and City Herald September 25 1835

Taken form Pike’s ‘Oxford: Views and Reviews’ published in 1897

Taken form Pike’s ‘Oxford: Views and Reviews’ published in 1897

Mary had a little pig but not for very long before it was sent off to Kindlington.

POXO635137

This little pig went to the Kidlington Bacon factory to be made into sausages

POXO635115

The John Johnson Collection: Ironmongery 3 (21)

John Johnson Collection: Trade Pamphlets (172)

The John Johnson Collection: Ironmongery 3 (23)

John Johnson Collection: Trade pamphlets (172)

By the early 20th century Oxford sausages were being canned and sold as far away as New Zealand.

Dorothy Spreadbury, the creator of the original Oxford Sausage recipe. This engraving is the frontispiece to Thomas Wharton’s book of satirical verse of the same name first published in 1764.

The Angel Inn, where it all started.

Grateful thanks to Stephanie Jenkins for alerting me to a couple of Sarah Herberts advertisements.

This from 3 October 1767

And this from exactly five years later on 3 October 1772 where she adds that other people had been claiming to sell her sausages but that you could only get them at her house.

Stephanie adds: “I have discovered that “begin” in the context of Oxford Sausage advertisements marks the beginning of the sausage season in September/October and not the start of a new business. So Mrs H could have taken over the making of Oxford Sausages in 1745 when her aunt Sarah Spreadbury died.”

You may also like to read:

David John, the last butcher in the covered market

The Oxford Sausage, A Book of Poetry