Freedom and stale bread

In April 1915 the first meeting of the staff committee took place. The minutes of the meeting, held at Peter Jones, are the first official record of any debate involving staff and Spedan Lewis, and they cover three main topics. 

The first was a request that young ladies who lived in the Peter Jones hostel above the shop should be allowed to stay out beyond 10 pm. The second was to complain about the staleness of the bread offered at meal times, and the third was another food related complaint about the quality of the butter.

Spedan Lewis was keen to retain the rule about no late-night entrances to the hostel as he felt the business had a responsibility for the moral welfare of the young ladies in the hostel.  He pointed out that many of them were only permitted to come to work in London by their parents as the rule offered the security and peace of mind that their offspring would be well looked after.

As far as stale bread was concerned it was, apparently, well known at that time that eating fresh bread was not good for the digestion! So presumably this was not something which Spedan thought was a good idea.

Butter was in short supply in 1915 with problems arising from the First World War so, again, there was little likelihood that this could be improved but the Matron of the hostel was encouraged to look at both the bread and butter issues to see if improvements could be made.

It is amazing to think that this meeting, one hundred years ago, was the first opportunity for the staff to have their say and that these were the issues they chose to raise. How far the democracy within our business has come!