John felt a strong desire to help his fellow citizens who preferred the oblivion of gin to any further struggle with life. In meetings across the town he told them that the money they saved by giving up alcohol could buy a better diet, and compared the hearty meals of roast meat and a quarter loaf that an abstainer could afford to those of a drinker on the same wage, who could bring home little more than a penny loaf. To convince his audience how little goodness there was in a gallon of ale, he lit a saucer of alcohol and watched it vanish in flames. As for the barley in a gallon of beer, he told them, it could be used to make something much more nutritious. At this point he would pass round some of Candia’s barley puddings to demonstrate the joys of repudiating drink.
Candia too became personally involved, and for many years ‘did go from house to house and court to court, circularising tracts and conversing with the people to induce them to discontinue the drinking usage and practices’. John later wrote that she saw it as her ‘duty to seek a personal interview with the landlords of public houses, spirit and beer shops’. These visits were not always appreciated: sometimes ‘she was met by rude and coarse remarks’. But often ‘much tenderness of feeling was displayed, tears flowed freely, with the expression of the desire to get out of the trade’. She almost certainly picked up the consumption that killed her from these trips, but even as her health was declining she continued her crusade, and insisted on making more than two hundred visits to publicans. Richard and George remembered her concerned interest in the children of the poor, who suffered from the consequences of having drunken parents. The Cadburys’ Total Abstinence Plan was so successful that, according to John, ‘very soon the “Moderation Society” sank into oblivion’.
John and Candia Cadbury and their family in 1847.
One tale recorded in Richard Cadbury’s Family Book concerns the old Birmingham workhouse, which was then at the corner of Lichfield Street and Steel House Lane. When John arrived there for his first meeting as an Overseer of the Poor, he was dismayed to find that the distinguished committee, in true Dickensian style, met once a month for a ‘sumptuous repast’, with members filling themselves with ‘the choicest delicacies’, washed down with brandy, before ‘attending to the shivering paupers outside’.
Bubbling over with righteous anger, John set out to expose the ‘illegality and iniquity’ of such banquets. Evidently this was met with some disfavour. In the heated debate that followed, one old gentleman who had never been known to speak on any former occasion was stirred to rise to make a brief but pithy point: ‘I spakes for the dinners!’ Needless to say, John managed to get the practice stopped.
The Birmingham workhouse.
He also served on the wonderfully-named Steam Engine Committee, which was responsible for tackling what he saw as the ‘serious evil’ of smog and smoke. As chairman in the 1840s, he gathered data on the Birmingham chimneys that were emitting the greatest volume of dense black smoke, and put pressure on their proprietors to take action. He was also chair of the Markets and Fairs Committee, which dealt with matters such as unwholesome meats and fraudulent trading. And he won funds as governor of the Birmingham General Hospital to develop its facilities. There was, according to the Daily Gazette, a widespread belief that the poor were operated on to advance medical knowledge, and John would periodically attend surgeries ‘to prevent any unnecessary cruelty to patients of the poorest class’.
Their parents’ example of patient and helpful concern for society’s less privileged members was a mantle that George and Richard accepted as an absolutely normal Quaker duty. Not only did they see it as their moral responsibility to improve the plight of those living in the industrial slums, but saving the chocolate factory also held out the promise of providing employment, thus helping the entire community. Even more fundamental, by developing and promoting cocoa as a drink that everyone could afford, they aimed to provide a nutritious alternative to alcohol.
Despite their diminishing inheritance, George and Richard persevered with their efforts to keep the company afloat. George saw the relationship with the employees as key. Sitting in the stock room at 6 a.m. over breakfast, he encouraged workers to discuss issues in their lives, and tried to help with their education, reading aloud to them and exchanging views on topics of interest or stories from the Bible. By today’s standards such actions might seem paternalistic and even intrusive, but at a time when many people could not read, they were greatly valued. Many staff members spoke of their enjoyment of these small meetings, which were ‘more like family gatherings’. One youth named Edward Thackray recalled how honoured he felt when Mr George called him into his office ‘and they knelt together in prayer over some weighty business question’.
The brothers’ interest in the workers was also practical. In spite of their losses, George and Richard pressed ahead with plans to increase wages, with a new payment structure that tripled women’s pay. A staff fire brigade was organised, which fortunately was never tested by a serious fire in the chocolate works. The brothers introduced the novel idea of a ‘Sick Club’ to help pay the wages of staff who had to take leave for illness. There was an evening sewing class once a week at the factory, during which George read to the group. The firm’s ‘bone-shaker’ bicycle – with iron-rimmed wheels and no springs – was extremely popular, and any employee could take it home if they had learned to ride it. Richard and George were among the first employers in Birmingham to introduce half days on Saturdays and bank holidays.
They even took the staff on leisure outings. According to the Daily Post of 21 June 1864, ‘On Thursday last, Messrs Cadbury brothers . . . with commendable liberality took the whole of their male employees on a delightful trip to Sutton Park. The afternoon was spent by some in playing cricket . . . and others rambling through the park enjoying the invigorating air.’ At five o’clock the whole company ‘sat down to a substantial tea which was duly appreciated’. There was cricket in the summer, and during the winter, ‘when work was a bit slack’, reported office worker George Brice, ‘the appearance of Mr George with his skates was a sure sign that we were to be the recipients of his favour in the shape of a half day’s skating’.
As his business experience grew, George was conscious that a paternal responsibility for the firm’s employees was falling gently on his shoulders, quite naturally from friendly daily contact. The welfare of the staff was woven into the brothers’ lives. The factory was not just a business, it was a world in miniature, and an opportunity to improve society. In the middle of the great big sinful city, George would create a perfect little world, a ‘model chocolate factory’.
But first he had to make a profit.
Chapter 4
They Did Not Show Us Any Mercy
No amount of prayers or hymns could solve one problem: the Cadbury brothers faced stiff competition. The other English cocoa manufacturers ‘showed no mercy’, claimed George, although they spoke with a friendly face and a reasonable voice. From the cramped offices of the Cadburys’ modest factory, their rivals looked unassailable. They sailed expertly on the great seas of commerce, making it look easy, inviting, like an adventure.
In London, the Taylor brothers claimed to be one of the largest cocoa and mustard manufacturers in Britain. They were making very similar products to the Cadbury brothers from their huge cocoa, chicory and mustard manufactory on a large site between Brick Lane and Wentworth Street in Spitalfields. A picture of their works proudly depicted on their sales brochure showed a vast complex of factory buildings with smoking chimneys, and horses and carriages gaily travelling to and fro. Their sales list boasted more than fifty different types of drinking cocoas, including all the familiar lines of Victorian England. Established in 1817, they had gained considerable expertise in cocoa preparation, and claimed their technical knowhow guaranteed the removal of any noxious, greasy oiliness from