There would be lots of other visitors to the house during the course of the week, to bring the necessary things for the day-to-day running of the house. If someone was selling or delivering something, they couldn’t use the front door – they would have to use the back door, just as Daisy does when Mum takes her to the house on her first day of work.
The telegraph boy would wear a bright red uniform and pillbox hat, and arrive on a matching red bicycle to deliver telegrams.
A
photograph of a telegraph boy in the 1900s
The
milkman had a cart with measuring jugs
of milk to deliver. He came very early in the morning so the house had milk at
breakfast, and then would visit again later in the day if more was needed. Most
houses did not have refrigerators, so milk would go off quickly and the milkman
could deliver many times a day to a big house.
A photograph of a milkman
in the 1900s
The baker had a cart with all of his bread in that he took around to all of the houses in his area. He carried a little notebook and wrote down deliveries for each house, and he would then be paid for the whole week’s bread on a Saturday.
A photograph of a bakers cart in 1903
The
coalman had someone called a ‘coal
agent’ who collected coal orders and payments for him. Then the coalman would
take his cart and deliver the coal into a coal hole in the scullery. Large
houses had a special coal hole that you could access from outside.
A
photograph of a horse-drawn coal cart in 1903
The chimney sweep came once or twice a year, which was lucky as he always left a mess! He brought brushes, sacks and a shovel with him. When he went up a chimney, the sweep would stick the brush out of the top and shout so that the family could see he was doing a good job.
A
photograph of a chimney sweep