LOCAL historian Clifford Stockton, of Woodburn Drive, Smithills has answered my question about the Bolton Bread Show. It was, he tells me, just one of many exhibitions during the late Victorian/Edwardian period.

It was an opportunity for bakers to display and promote their products for a more discerning public.

"As the working populous were awarded more holidays, they acquired more demanding tastes, and if you could say on your letterheads, advertising, etc. that you had won such a medal, it all helped to sell your bread.

"Bolton Bread Show seems to have been put on between 1909 to 1914 - it looks as if the First World War killed it off."

Mr Stockton in fact collects such medals, and tells me that silver and bronze medals have survived, but not any gold medals as yet! "However, we live in hope."

A number of medals/awards came onto the antique market recently, all from the collection of Bolton baker John Lonsdale.

Most of them had been won between 1906 and 1912, and he won more than 200 gold, silver and bronze awards.

John Lonsdale was born in 1876, and started work in the engineering business as an apprentice.

"However," writes Mr Stockton, "as a young man he wanted his own business. He left the engineering trade and started as a baker, making bread and cakes during the day, and studying bakery technology in the evenings, bringing his engineering knowledge and skill to the bakery trade.

"As a student at the Manchester School of Technology he won a gold medal, and was invited to join the staff. He declined the offer, preferring to build up his business, and in 1911 built a new bakery in Thornley Avenue, Smithills, as a wholesale baker.

"From a study of the dates on 16 of his medals, it would appear that he was now at the peak of his career, because the medals/awards are for shows, competitions and exhibitions all over the country, from the Midlands Counties Exhibition to Bolton Bread Show, from the Association of Master Bakers of South Essex Bread Competition to Newport Monmouthshire Operatives Annual Bread and Cakes Competition."

Mr Stockton continues: "John Lonsdale was entering and winning these events, and it seems possible that as some of the medals are inscribed to him personally as opposed to naming the actual product (e.g. crusty cottage bread) that he was winning medals for his technological skill-bakery machinery.

"In 1920 he became a Liberal councillor for Smithills, and in the same year offered his bakery and plant to the Education Committee for training purposes, providing that the committee supply the teacher. He became treasurer of Bolton Master Bakers' Association, was a fervent supporter of the Old Links Golf Club, President of Smithills Bowling Green, and a Freemason in St. George's Lodge.

In April, 1921, he underwent an operation. Later, in Park Road Nursing home he had a relapse and died on April 22. At his funeral his cortege was preceded by some of his workmen, his Foreman Baker in the mourning party along with the Mayor, councillors, the Chief Librarian, and representatives from all his Association. Scores of people lined the route and also attended the funeral service."

"He must," comments Mr Stockton, "have baked a good loaf."