Why did a pork Butcher just sell pork?

[t-diddy]

NOT Sweeney Todd ??

[geniecolgan]

One and the same, Diddy 

[Mumsie2131]

There was still a Pork Butchers in Macclesfield when we left in 1979 - very good it was too - they made 'ham burgers' and they were delicious.

[millymcb]

I have an ancestor who was a pork butcher. Looking at Google, it seems, as the name suggests, that a pork butcher sold all things pork related. But why? Didn't they have beef or poultry? Or were there beef and poultry butchers too?

Does anyone know the answer?
Beverley
[/quote

 

My great grandfather was a pork butcher and I was always under the impression (mostly gained from my mother - who got it from my grandmother) that he wasn't a butcher as in selling pork - but that he was a butcher as in a kind of slaughterman...and possibly he used to keep pigs too (but I'm not 100% sure on that bit).   I googled it a while back and I'm sure I read something which confirmed the difference between a "pork butcher" and a "pork seller".    I'll have a look and see if I can find it again.

Milly

[millymcb]

    Maybe I was mis-informed (whoever heard of that happening in old family history tales!!). I'm a bit confused now...   This book seems to suggest a pork butcher is a shopkeeper of some kind who sold pork-stuff and also dairy produce if they wanted to.   Maybe it can be both.


http://www.rootschat.com/links/03zo/


I'm going to have to investigate more now

Milly

[WHS1899]

To all of you who have replied......thank you very much. All of it has been really helpful and so interesting. My pork butcher ancestor was a lady of 76!

Beverley

[geniecolgan]

Hmmm, a lady of 76

I doubt that she swung the pole ax 

She most likely just sold the products and had someone else do the "wet work".

Was her son a butcher perchance? The trade does run in families.

[WHS1899]

I seem to have got myself in a muddle here. I'm positive she was a lady of 76 that was the pork butcher and that she was on my Dad's side of the family....this is for sure as Dad was 76 at the time, and I remember him saying she must have been a tough old lady. Sadly I can only find one pork butcher in Dad's file and she was 39, which is more like it I guess. I'm convinced I do have one of 76 though....can't ask Dad either, as he lost his fight with cancer in December. I'll hav to keep hunting.

[geniecolgan]

Beverley,

Where and when did this lady live?

Since about 1875 The Ministry of Health controlled licenses for Slaughtering.
Private slaughter houses were not allowed in many cities and towns so most butchers then either had their animals shipped to a Public Slaughter House and the carcases delivered to the shop or bought carcases from wholesalers.