Sir George Barham (22 November 1836 – 16 November 1913) was an English businessman and founder of the

Express County Milk Company Express Dairies is a former brand of Dairy Crest, that specialised almost entirely in home deliveries of milk, and other dairy products. History The company was founded by George Barham in 1864 as the 'Express County Milk Supply Company,' so name ...

, later to become

Express Dairies Express Dairies is a former brand of Dairy Crest, that specialised almost entirely in home deliveries of milk, and other dairy products. History The company was founded by George Barham in 1864 as the 'Express County Milk Supply Company,' so name ...

. He is sometimes described as the father of the British dairying industry. Barham was born in November 1836 at the

Strand, London Strand (or the Strand) is a major thoroughfare in the City of Westminster, Central London. It runs just over from Trafalgar Square eastwards to Temple Bar, where the road becomes Fleet Street in the City of London, and is part of the A4 ...

, younger surviving son of Robert Barham (1807-1888), who owned a retail dairy and had been a licensed victualler, and Altezeera Henrietta (died 1886), daughter of George Davey, of Bletchley, Buckinghamshire. Robert Barham was a younger son of a long-established family of Sussex yeoman farmers and ironmasters, from which also came John Barham, a High

Sheriff of Sussex The office of Sheriff of Sussex was established before the Norman Conquest. The Office of sheriff remained first in precedence in the counties until the reign of Edward VII when an Order in Council in 1908 gave the Lord-Lieutenant the prime office ...

, and the lawyer and politician Nicholas Barham. Barham was apprenticed to a carpenter before working with his father in the dairy business, and in 1864 he founded the Express County Milk Company. A cattle plague in 1865 threatened the supply of milk in London and Barham transported fresh milk to London by rail to avert the crisis. A separate company supplying utensils for the dairy industry was formed as the Dairy Supply Company Limited which by the start of the 20th century was the largest company of its type in the world. At his own expense Barham helped to introduce modern dairy practices in

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

and to the West Indies. In 1900 he was appointed a member of the Committee on Milk Standards, he issued a minority report of which most was adopted by the Board of Agriculture. He was called as a witness to a number of commissions on Railway Rates and before the Committee of Food Adulteration. Barham suggested a bill which became the Margarine Act. He was elected a

Fellow of the Royal Statistical Society The Royal Statistical Society (RSS) is an established statistical society. It has three main roles: a British learned society for statistics, a professional body for statisticians and a charity which promotes statistics for the public good. ...

in November 1902. Barham owned two estates at Wadhurst in Sussex and 1895 he stood for the Unionist party in the 1895 general election at West Islington but was not elected. On 5 July 1904 Barham was

knighted A knight is a person granted an honorary title of knighthood by a head of state (including the Pope) or representative for service to the monarch, the Christian denomination, church or the country, especially in a military capacity. Knighthood ...

. He was Mayor of

Hampstead Hampstead () is an area in London, which lies northwest of Charing Cross, and extends from Watling Street, the A5 road (Roman Watling Street) to Hampstead Heath, a large, hilly expanse of parkland. The area forms the northwest part of the Lon ...

in 1905 and 1906 and from 1908 to 1909

High Sheriff of Middlesex This is a list of sheriffs of Middlesex. History of the office From c. 1131 to 1889 there was no separate sheriff for the county. By a charter of Henry I the livery of the City of London were given the right to elect two sheriffs of "London and ...

. He married Margaret Rainey and they had two sons, she died in 1906. Barham died aged 76 in November 1913 at his home at Snape, Wadhurst. With the purchase by his youngest son, Colonel Arthur Saxby Barham, of

Hole Park Hole Park is a privately owned country house near the village of Rolvenden, in Kent, England. It is a Grade II listed building. The gardens, first opened in the 1920s, are regularly open to the public. Description History The earliest mention of ...

Rolvenden Rolvenden is a village and civil parish in the Ashford District of Kent, England. The village is centred on the A28 Ashford to Hastings road, south-west of Tenterden. The settlement of Rolvenden Layne, south of Rolvenden, is also part of th ...

, Kent, the family were counted amongst the landed gentry.Burke's Landed Gentry, 18th edition, vol. 3, ed. Hugh Montgomery-Massingberd, Burke's Peerage Ltd, 1972, pp. 42-43

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Barham, George 1826 births 1913 deaths High Sheriffs of Middlesex Knights Bachelor Businesspeople awarded knighthoods Businesspeople from London Barham, George Members of Hampstead Metropolitan Borough Council Liberal Unionist Party parliamentary candidates 19th-century English businesspeople