Gradually, however, during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the cocoa bean found its way into the coffee houses of Europe. Its first recorded mention in England appears in an advertisement in the Public Advertiser on 22 June 1657: ‘At a Frenchman’s house in Queensgate Alley is an excellent West India drink called Chocolate to be sold, where you may have it ready at any time at reasonable rates.’ Word of the exotic new drink spread across England. In the 1660s, the diarist Samuel Pepys describes enjoying his drink of ‘chocolatte’ or ‘Jocolatte’ so much that he was soon ‘slabbering for another’. In 1662 Henry Stubbe, royal physician to King Charles II, published A Discourse Concerning Chocolata, in which he surveyed the ‘nature of the cacao-nut’ and extolled the health benefits of the drink. Taken with spices it could relieve coughs and colds, and strengthen the heart and stomach. For anyone ‘tyred through business’ Stubbe heartily recommended chocolate twice a day. It could even serve as an aphrodisiac. White’s famous Chocolate House opened in 1693 in St James’s, London.
Cocoa continued to gain in popularity, principally as a drink prepared in the Mexican way, but it was also added as a flavouring to meat dishes, soups and puddings. In Italy a recipe for chocolate sorbet survives from 1794 – once the mixture was prepared, ‘the vase is buried in snow layered with salt and frozen’. For the more adventurous palate, Italian recipes from the period listed cocoa as an ingredient in lasagne, or even added it to fried liver. While most European preparations were ‘rough . . . and produced poor results’, according to Richard Cadbury, ‘France developed a better system for roasting and grinding.’ The French confiseurs got straight on with the sweet course; no messing with chillies, curries or fried liver. By the nineteenth century, French confectioners were winning a reputation for their exquisite hand-crafted sweets made from chocolate: delicious mousses, chocolate cakes, crèmes and dragées and chocolate-coated nuts.
With the wheels of European commerce and consumerism driving demand, in the Americas the cultivation of the cocoa bean was gradually extended beyond Mexico and Guatemala, reaching south to the lower slopes of the Andes in Ecuador, the rolling plains of Venezuela and into the fringes of the Amazon rainforest of Brazil. In the Caribbean, cocoa plantations were established on Jamaica, St Lucia and Grenada as well as Trinidad, which became a British colony in 1802.
By the mid-nineteenth century, despite the growing interest in the cocoa bean in Europe, it remained expensive, and principally a novelty for the wealthy. ‘When we take into account the indifferent means of preparation,’ concluded Richard Cadbury, ‘we can hardly be surprised that it did not come into general favour with the public.’ As Richard and George struggled to save their business, the full potential of Theobroma cacao had yet to be revealed. The unprepossessing little bean offered only a tantalising promise of prosperity.
In the early 1860s George and Richard hardly needed to undertake the charade of stocktaking, which they did twice a year. They knew their business did not thrive. The Cadbury brothers’ wide variety of different cocoas did not excite the nation’s tastebuds. ‘We determined that we would close the business when we were unable to pay 20 shillings in the pound,’ George said, determined to honour all their financial agreements in full. He admitted the stocktaking was ‘depressing’, but nonetheless he and Richard thrived on the challenge: ‘We went back again to our work with renewed vigour and were probably happier than most successful men.’
The struggle brought the brothers closer together. Quite apart from sharing the responsibility and the burden with George, Richard proved to be a delight as a partner. He was ‘very good natured and constantly up to practical jokes and fun of various kinds’, George wrote, ‘so that one almost doubts whether immediate success in a business is a blessing’. Workers too recalled Mr George and Mr Richard with a ‘cheery smile’, although they knew ‘the Firm was in low water and losing money’, and ‘at one stage expected any day to hear that the works were to be shut’.
Despite his outward calm, as losses mounted Richard privately formed a list of everything he owned, noting the price each item would fetch if it had to be sold at auction. The birth on 27 September 1862 of his first son, Barrow – named after Richard’s mother’s family – was great cause for celebration, but Richard knew the financial security of his young family was uncertain, and the brothers fully intended to shut the business rather than risk defaulting on any money owed and accruing debt. The stocktaking at the end of the second year was particularly gloomy. By Christmas 1862, the Cadbury brothers’ losses had escalated to a further £304 each.
But for Richard and George there was another motive that went well beyond personal gain. Business was not an end in itself; it was a means to an end. As Quakers, they had a far greater goal to fulfil.
Chapter 3
The Root of All Evil
Richard and George Cadbury shared a vision of social justice and reform: a new world, in which the poor and needy would be lifted from the ‘ruin of deprivation’. For generations, the Cadburys had been members of the Society of Friends, or Quakers, a spiritual movement started by George Fox in the seventeenth century. In a curious irony, the very religion that inspired Quakers to act charitably towards the poor also produced a set of codes and practices that enabled a few thousand close-knit families like the Cadburys to generate astounding material rewards at the start of the industrial age.
Richard and George had been brought up on stories of George Fox, and many of the values, aspirations and disciplines that shaped their lives stemmed from his teachings. Born in 1624, the son of a weaver from Drayton-in-the-Clay (now known as Fenny Drayton) in Leicestershire, Fox grew up with a passionate interest in religion at a time when the country had seen years of religious turmoil; he went to ‘many a priest looking for comfort, but found no comfort from them’. He was appalled at the inhumanity carried out in the name of religion: people imprisoned or even executed for their faith. Disregarding the danger following the outbreak of the Civil War in 1642, he left home the following year in some torment, and set out on foot for London. At the age of just nineteen, Fox embarked on his own personal quest for greater understanding.
During these years of travel, ‘when my hopes . . . in all men were gone’, he had an epiphany. The key to religion was not to be found in the sermons of preachers, but in an individual’s inner experience. Inspired, he began to preach, urging people simply to listen to their own consciences. Because ‘God dwelleth in the hearts of obedient people,’ he reasoned, it followed that an individual could find ‘the spirit of Christ within’ to guide them, instead of taking orders from others.
George Fox, the founder of the Quaker movement.
Fox blazed a trail across England, preaching against the rituals and outward forms of religion, even the standard forms of prayer and the sacraments. All these he regarded as trivial accessories; irrelevant, possibly even hindering a union with God. These outward symbols of truth, he reasoned, obscured or distorted the real truth, which could be found within each one of us. He spoke out against the corruption within the Church, arguing for social justice and a more honest and immediate form of Christianity. These views put him in direct opposition to the political and religious authorities. If an individual was listening to the voice of God within himself, it followed that priests and religious leaders were needless intermediaries.
Fox was perceived as dangerous, and his preaching blasphemous to established Churches. Even the similarly-minded Puritans objected to him. They too adhered to a rigorous moral code, high standards of self-discipline and a disdain for worldly pursuits, but Fox’s