The ships biscuit, bread and biscuit making

Biscuit and Bread

Ship's biscuit Biscuit: the ‘bread’ which was supplied to ships, particularly naval, before bakeries were introduced on board. It was made with flour, mixed with the least possible quantity of water, and thoroughly kneaded into flat cakes and slowly baked.

Good biscuit was supposed to be one-third heavier than the flour from which it was made. It was before the days of tin-lined chests, packed in canvas or cloth bags and quickly became infested with black-headed weevils, a cause of much complaining by seamen.

Ships biscuit was issued until bakeries began to be fitted generally in ships at the beginning of the 20th century and bread became available for long voyages, but even then large stocks of biscuit were held in naval victualling stores for issue to ships in wartime, and many ships in the British Navy during the First World War (1914-18) and for some years after, biscuit was a victualling issued on board until the huge stocks were exhausted.

Bread: the name euphemistically given, in the days before ships were fitted with bakeries, to ships biscuit baked especially hard to preserve it for long periods.

Breadroom: the compartment below decks in older ships in which the biscuit was stowed in canvas bags / cases.

19th October 1818.
Unsuccessful experiments to defeat the weevil by adding caraway seed to biscuit: the weevils simply ignored the seed.

21st November 1828
Board approved introduction of hexagonal machine-made biscuit baked at Clarence Yard (Gosport).

A visit to a biscuit factory 1866

Nine year old Alexander Pelham Trotter, a Portsmouth boy made a diary of his tour round Gosport’s Royal Clarence Yard in 1866, when ships biscuits used to be made there by the thousand. Recently, the penned notes and pencilled diagrams of Alexander have been passed to Portsmouth City Records Office. I hope these copies do him justice

Corn room Biscuit manufactory August 24 1866

The corn having been threshed before coming to the manufactory, is now stored in this large room, which is about 60ft square. The men are shovelling the corn, out of the sacks in which it is brought to the manufactory, begin to pile up the corn in the centre of the room. To the height of about three feet, and continue it all over the room. Like a smooth
even carpet, leaving a space of about six feet clear all round the room.

Plate 1 from "The biscuit factory"

Plat 2, fig 1 from "The biscuit factory"

After being taken from the corn room (see plate I) the corn is ground and discharged into a cylindrical box (a. plate 2 fig 1)
from whence it is poured through the wooden pipe (b) in to a revolving wooden trough (c) and after passing a little way round the central cylinders, is turned off by means of a sloping board (e) at an angle of 450 into a wooded pipe (d)
which conveys the flour into the mixing trough (see plate 3 fig 1)

Fig 2 from "The biscuit factory"

Biscuit maling plate 3

Passing through a wooden pipe, the flour is discharged into a wooden mixing trough (fig 1) where it is formed into dough with hot water, by means of an apparatus similar to that used in egg whisking. When of a right consistency, the dough is taken out in lumps, and placed under a rolling pin (fig 2) and rolled to the thickness shown in (fig 3). It is then rolled again which diminishes the thickness to that shown in which state it is stamped. ‘A’ in figure 2 is a hinge by which the circular motion of the crank B is changed to a horizontal motion.

Biscuit making plate 4

The stamping operation is performed by means of a stamping press (fig 1a) the punches of which are set on springs, under this press are wooden trays (b) which work upon rollers (c. c. c.) and on which the sheets of dough are placed after coming from under the roller (plate 3 fig 2) the press stamps 24 biscuits at a time, which form a sheet of biscuits (fig 2). These sheets are then placed on boards which are pushed in a frame upon castors (fig 3) in which state that are rolled to the oven.

Biscuit making plate 5

The oven (plate 5 fig 1) is a vault ten feet in length over which a stream of fire issues from the furnaces, of which there is one on each side. The sheets of biscuits are then taken from the frame (plate 4 fig 3) on which they are put, after being stamped, and pushed to the back of the oven by means of a flat cast-iron shovel about 14 feet long (plate 5 fig 2) where they remain for 20 minutes. They are then taken out and the baker standing as in (plate 5 fig 3) at the mouth of the oven draws the biscuit to him with the shovel allowing the sheet of biscuits to project over a narrow shelf and with a blow of the hand detaches six biscuits to fall singly (as in fig 4) into a sack placed below to receive them.

Biscuit making plate 6

The biscuits are now removed from the sacks into which they were thrown after being taken from the oven and are closely packed in airtight barrels which are stored in underground vaults underneath the manufactory, where half a dozen barrels have been kept as an experiment for several years and are still as good as new. They are taken when required from the vault to the ships.