Doctor, Healthy Eating Activist and Miller
Thomas R Allinson was a British doctor, dietetic reformer, vegetarian activist and a miller. He championed the health benefits of eating wholemeal bread. Millers who wrote to him and sent him a sample of their wholemeal flour would receive a letter of commendation that they could use for advertising. In 1892, he bought a flour mill and Allinson’s Flour was born along with bakeries[1].
Thomas Richard Allinson was born in Lancashire in 1858, trained as a chemist’s assistant and then attended the extramural Medical School in Edinburgh, graduating in 1879. He adopted Naturopathy and developed a theory of Hygienic Medicine which promoted a way of life by a healthy diet, fresh air, exercise, work-life balance and bathing. He advocated a vegetarian diet and abstinence from alcohol, tea, coffee and tobacco.[2]
Allinson established a private practice in Marylebone, London in 1885 and wrote regular newspaper columns promoting his ideas and answering reader enquiries. He wrote two books The System of Hygienic Medicine (1886) and The Advantage of Wholemeal Bread (1889) and over 1000 articles. Despite being a physician, he opposed the use of drugs as many were ineffective and toxic. He also believed that smoking caused cancer.
However, his ideas brought him into conflict with the Royal College of Physicians and he was struck off the Medical Register for ‘radical thinking’. He was also expelled from the Vegetarian Society because of his views on birth control, despite support from Mahatma Ghandi. He also promoted equality of men and women.
His self-promotion in the press and large medical practice ensured a following for his ideas, particularly amongst traditional stoneground flour millers whose livelihoods were under threat from roller flour milling.
To further promote wholemeal bread, Allinson bought a stone-grinding flour mill in Bethnal Green, London in 1892. This was the Cyclone mills site in Cambridge Road, north of Patriot Square[3] and established The Natural Food Company under the slogan ‘Health without medicine’. He believed that grinding the whole grain into flour kept a lot of nutritional value, where roller flour milling created a refined white flour that had lost a lot of fibre. Allinson’s Flour was born and a bakery, Allinson’s Bread Co., was established nearby.
By 1914, the growing demand for wholemeal flour and bread resulted in the government accepting his theories on healthy nutrition. During the First World War, the government promoted the National Loaf because flour was limited and it was cheaper to process the whole grain so nothing was wasted. The new loaf used half wholemeal and half white flour. Although the Medical Council offered to reinstate him, Allinson refused. He died in 1918 from tuberculosis.
The company expanded the London mill after his death (closed between 1964 and 1975). They opened new mills at Newport, Monmouthshire and Castleford, Yorkshire. Advertisements appeared on commercial television under the slogan “Bread wi’ now’t taken out”.
Allinson was regarded as a radical with maverick ideas on health and nutrition. Ideas which now we are increasingly encouraged to adopt by the government, medical practitioners and dieticians.
[1] Allinson’s Flour: Our History https://www.allinsonflour.co.uk/about/our-history
[2] Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Allinson
[3] British History Online – Bethnal Green: Economic History https://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/middx/vol11/pp168-190