William Harris, the Sausage King

William Harris, the Sausage King

As the second largest livestock market in England, St Ives drew all sorts of characters, from tough drovers to traders and shopkeepers from far and wide. Few were more eccentric than William Harris, known as the “Sausage King”.

In 1890 he was described as a celebrity and a familiar figure at St Ives market. The following year, when he needed two lively sucking pigs for a Drury Lane pantomime, he ordered them from Tom Anderson’s butchers in Bridge Street.

William was a Victorian London butcher and sausage maker with a gift for self-promotion. Read on to learn about his life.

Early life

Born in 1843 in Stratford, London, William began work at the age of nine for a Woolwich butcher. He opened his own stall in Old Newgate Market, selling to the public other butchers. By 1871 he was earning enough to move into lodgings at 17 Hayne Street, Finsbury, where he listed his occupation as pork butcher.

Into business
William specialised in pork sausages. At a time when anything could be stuffed into a casing, he raised sausage making to a craft. He experimented with recipes, used good cuts, added herbs such as chopped sage, and paid attention to what customers liked. His greatest strength, though, was self-promotion. From the outset his humour and lively banter drew people in.

As business grew, William took a fifty-year lease on 3–5 St John Street, opposite Smithfield Market, and developed it as his flagship store. He opened a restaurant serving sausage and mash, which proved so popular that he later launched forty premises across London and in Southend, Brighton, Portsmouth and other towns. Styling himself the Sausage King, William used theatrical advertising to promote his brand.

In 1897 he rebuilt 3–5 St John Street in yellow brick with stone dressings and a Welsh slate roof. The new five-storey building had an office entrance at no. 5, a shop front at no. 3, and pink polished granite bases to the piers. Its design showed an Art Nouveau influence, and a carved boar sat beside William’s name at the top.

Complicated family life
William (28) married Jane Sharp Blackford (20) in 1871. Over the next decade they had three sons. The first was given his father’s name, and William saw no reason to change course when the second and third sons arrived. With three boys all called William, he differentiated between them as William number one, William number two, and William number three.

William was probably a difficult man to live with. By 1881 there was no sign of Jane or the boys. William lived at 34 East India Dock Road, recorded as unmarried. With him were his two sisters, one acting as housekeeper, along with a domestic servant. The evidence points to an irreparable breakdown in the marriage.

By 1891 William was living with a woman named Betsy, recording her as his wife. It appears they had lived together in this way for a decade and had four daughters together. Each girl was named Elizabeth, listed in the census under the nickname Betsy. The order in which the household is listed is striking, with William, his manageress, and then his three sons placed ahead of his partner and daughters.

William’s true wife, Jane (40) was still alive. We know this since she died in 1893. Found close to death and virtually destitute in Charterhouse Square, she was described at the inquest as having been separated from William for some years. Although he paid her an allowance, she was at times in want and out of work when she died of natural causes, most likely heart failure.

Free to marry again, did William make an honest woman of Betsy? He did not. Instead, in 1894 he married Harriet Branch, who was 28 years his junior. What became of Betsy is unknown.

By 1911 William described himself as a digestive sausage maker. The two daughters still living with him had gained some independence, at least in name. No longer all called Betsy, they appear in the census as Louisa and Margaret Ann. His wife and daughters were all listed as assistants in the sausage business.

Other eccentricities
William’s choice of names for his children was not his only eccentricity. Several other habits set him apart.

• Livestock markets saw every kind of dress, from the rough clothes of drovers to the smarter outfits of traders and farmers. William eclipsed them all, turning up in evening wear with a swallowtail coat, a cravat pinned with a large diamond, and a top hat. As the day wore on, his once immaculate appearance usually deteriorated.

• His deliveries travelled in bright red sausage carts pulled by brown and white ponies he bred himself.

• At his Brighton shop, when a tramp tried to run off with a string of sausages, William proposed an eating contest. If the man could out-eat him, he would face no charge. The event took place in the shop window before a huge crowd. William won by four sausages but still let the man go and gave him a sovereign.

• William registered the sausage king as a trademark and used photographic images and theatrical copy in his advertising.

Later life

Some time after 1901 William closed his restaurants and focused on wholesale sausage manufacturing. 

William (69) died in 1912 from heart failure caused by bronchitis. News of his death reached as far as Australia. William is buried in Lambeth Cemetery.

After his death, William number 2 took over the running of William Harris & Sons. The business continued trading for another 50 years, until a disasterous eight weeks in 1962 when poor quality sausages generated customer complaints, heavy losses and bankruptcy.