Ice, eh! Ice, eh! Ice, eh!

[Wowbagger]

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/dec/28/chilling-discovery-archaeologists-uncover-lost-ice-house-under-london-street

That's impressive!

[Cudzoziemiec]

But I'd like to know why ice was a privilege in the 1820s and affordable to the masses by the 1840s. Surely that can't have been down to Norwegian fjords, but no reason is given.

[Kim]

But I'd like to know why ice was a privilege in the 1820s and affordable to the masses by the 1840s. Surely that can't have been down to Norwegian fjords, but no reason is given.

Mechanical refrigeration wasn't practical on an industrial scale until the 1850s at the earliest, so it must have been harvested from somewhere.  Maybe it was simply down to economies of scale?

[hubner]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_trade#Globalization,_1830%E2%80%9350

New England businessmen also tried to establish a market for ice in England during the 1840s. An abortive first attempt to export ice to England had occurred in 1822 under William Leftwich; he had imported ice from Norway, but his cargo had melted before reaching London.[47] Fresh attempts were made by Jacob Hittinger who owned supplies at Fresh Pond, and Eric Landor, with assets at Wenham Lake, in 1842 and 1844 respectively.[48] Of the two, Landor's venture was more successful and he formed the Wenham Lake Ice Company to export to Britain, building an ice depot on the Strand.[49] Wenham ice was marketed as being unusually pure, possessed of special cooling properties, successfully convincing British customers to avoid local British ice, which was condemned as polluted and unhealthy.[50] After some initial success, the venture eventually failed, in part because the English chose not to adopt chilled drinks in the same way as North Americans, but also because of the long distances involved in the trade and the consequent costs of ice wastage through melting.[51] Nonetheless, the trade allowed for some refrigerated goods to arrive in England from America along with ice cargos during the 1840s.[52][c]


The Norwegian trade peaked during the 1890s, with a million tons (900 million kg) of ice was being exported from Norway by 1900; the major Leftwich company in Britain, importing much of this, kept a thousand tons (900,000 kg) of ice in store at all times to meet demand

It seems before that time, ice was only harvested from the cooler parts of the UK on a small scale. Once you have ship loads of ice arriving in the UK, prices would fall.

[Wobbly John]

That's a whopper.

When I was a teenager, we had a 'den' in an icehouse on one of the big country estates where a friend lived, but that one was probably only about 10 feet diameter, and 8ft deep (it would have been deeper originally, but the base was covered in broken bricks where the roof had collapsed). I'm sure there was a more complete one in the area, but I can't remember where that was.

[Jakob W]

The first chapter of Steven Johnson's _How We Got to Now_ is all about refrigeration and starts with the global ice trade; I presume the first episode of the TV series (co-produced with the book) also covers the same.

[Cudzoziemiec]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_trade#Globalization,_1830%E2%80%9350

New England businessmen also tried to establish a market for ice in England during the 1840s. An abortive first attempt to export ice to England had occurred in 1822 under William Leftwich; he had imported ice from Norway, but his cargo had melted before reaching London.[47] Fresh attempts were made by Jacob Hittinger who owned supplies at Fresh Pond, and Eric Landor, with assets at Wenham Lake, in 1842 and 1844 respectively.[48] Of the two, Landor's venture was more successful and he formed the Wenham Lake Ice Company to export to Britain, building an ice depot on the Strand.[49] Wenham ice was marketed as being unusually pure, possessed of special cooling properties, successfully convincing British customers to avoid local British ice, which was condemned as polluted and unhealthy.[50] After some initial success, the venture eventually failed, in part because the English chose not to adopt chilled drinks in the same way as North Americans, but also because of the long distances involved in the trade and the consequent costs of ice wastage through melting.[51] Nonetheless, the trade allowed for some refrigerated goods to arrive in England from America along with ice cargos during the 1840s.[52][c]


The Norwegian trade peaked during the 1890s, with a million tons (900 million kg) of ice was being exported from Norway by 1900; the major Leftwich company in Britain, importing much of this, kept a thousand tons (900,000 kg) of ice in store at all times to meet demand

It seems before that time, ice was only harvested from the cooler parts of the UK on a small scale. Once you have ship loads of ice arriving in the UK, prices would fall.

Wikipedia contradicts the Graun, which says Leftwich's ice imports were successful. I don't know which of them is more reliable, or at least less unreliable.

[andrewc]

This reminded me of a passage in "Around The World In 80 Days" in which it is mentioned that Phileas Fogg's drinks at the Reform Club were chilled with ice, shipped at great expense from the American lakes. That was published in 1873.  I've just found an online version & while I've not read it in probably 40 years can remember a lot of the dialogue.


 http://etc.usf.edu/lit2go/55/around-the-world-in-80-days/1046/chapter-1-in-which-phileas-fogg-and-passepartout-accept-each-other-the-one-as-master-the-other-as-man-around-the-world-in-80-days/

[hubner]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_trade#Globalization,_1830%E2%80%9350

New England businessmen also tried to establish a market for ice in England during the 1840s. An abortive first attempt to export ice to England had occurred in 1822 under William Leftwich; he had imported ice from Norway, but his cargo had melted before reaching London.[47] Fresh attempts were made by Jacob Hittinger who owned supplies at Fresh Pond, and Eric Landor, with assets at Wenham Lake, in 1842 and 1844 respectively.[48] Of the two, Landor's venture was more successful and he formed the Wenham Lake Ice Company to export to Britain, building an ice depot on the Strand.[49] Wenham ice was marketed as being unusually pure, possessed of special cooling properties, successfully convincing British customers to avoid local British ice, which was condemned as polluted and unhealthy.[50] After some initial success, the venture eventually failed, in part because the English chose not to adopt chilled drinks in the same way as North Americans, but also because of the long distances involved in the trade and the consequent costs of ice wastage through melting.[51] Nonetheless, the trade allowed for some refrigerated goods to arrive in England from America along with ice cargos during the 1840s.[52][c]


The Norwegian trade peaked during the 1890s, with a million tons (900 million kg) of ice was being exported from Norway by 1900; the major Leftwich company in Britain, importing much of this, kept a thousand tons (900,000 kg) of ice in store at all times to meet demand

It seems before that time, ice was only harvested from the cooler parts of the UK on a small scale. Once you have ship loads of ice arriving in the UK, prices would fall.

Wikipedia contradicts the Graun, which says Leftwich's ice imports were successful. I don't know which of them is more reliable, or at least less unreliable.

Wikipedia is supposed to be based on existing sources, Wikipedia itself doesn't actually contradict anything.

The source, as indicated in the article, is:
http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/22471/1/wp20.pdf
page 4

The first merchant trading in Norwegian natural ice was the Englishman William Leftwich in 1822. Judged by Mr Leftwich’s experience, little indicated that the trade in natural ice would be a booming industry later in the century. Upon arrival in London the ship was close to sinking and all the ice had melted.

I would guess the Guardian article is based on this MOLA (Museum of London Archaeology) article:
https://www.mola.org.uk/blog/18th-century-ice-house-re-discovered-beneath-streets-marylebone

[rafletcher]

The (printed) article referred to “frozen Norwegian fjord”. I presume they meant glacier...

[ElyDave]

depending how far north it was, it could well have been a frozen fjord, although the Gulf Stream does go pretty far up Norway.

[Wowbagger]

I'd guess that rafletcher's post was more to do with fjords being saline, as opposed to glaciers, which aren't. Unless the ice on top of a fjord is mostly compacted snow. I don't know, merely surmising.

[LittleWheelsandBig]

Sea ice (generally) contains very little salt.
https://nsidc.org/cryosphere/seaice/characteristics/brine_salinity.html

Edit: It is more complicated than I remembered. New sea ice contains brine pockets. If the ice survives past one year, the brine drains and the ice becomes virtually pure H2O.

[Kim]

And salty ice is just fine for keeping stuff cold where it doesn't mix, as per an icebox.

[rafletcher]

And salty ice is just fine for keeping stuff cold where it doesn't mix, as per an icebox.

Possibly better than pure ice indeed.

[hubner]

The ice came from mountain lakes in southern Norway.

http://www.canalmuseum.org.uk/ice/iceimport.htm

[ElyDave]

And salty ice is just fine for keeping stuff cold where it doesn't mix, as per an icebox.

Possibly better than pure ice indeed.

The old fashioned manual ice cream churn used the addition of salt to lower the temperature. I'm assuming it was an endothermic heat of solution