Chocolate Wars

by Deborah Cadbury

  Discipline could be severe for any members who were unable to meet the ethical standards required or acted imprudently in business. With the astonishing success of Quaker businesses and banks during the Industrial Revolution, protecting the good name of the Society became critically important. Those who repeatedly failed to demonstrate the high ethical conduct required of a Quaker tradesman could be disowned by the Society. This was seen as a harsh punishment, with the offender excluded from the local Quaker community and recognized publicly as a thief or a cheat.

  As the nineteenth century progressed, the 1738 Advices and 1782 Extracts were updated once again into the more formal Rules of Discipline in 1833. By this time, material prosperity presented another issue for the Quaker elders. Was it right for a religious person cultivating plainness and simplicity to accumulate wealth? “We do not condemn industry, which we believe to be not only praiseworthy but indispensable,” noted the Rules of Discipline, but “the love of money is said in Scripture to be ‘the root of all Evil.’” The guidelines urged, “Dear Friends who are favoured with outward prosperity, when riches increase not to set your hearts upon them.” The work ethic was entirely acceptable, but accumulating riches for oneself was not.

  As Richard and George Cadbury embarked on their business life, Quaker guidelines were updated yet again, in Doctrine, Practice and Discipline of 1861. By now the section on trade had become a sophisticated set of rules under the heading “Advice in Relation to the Affairs of Life.” The section covered a wide range of issues: honesty and truthfulness, plain dealing, fair trading, debt, seeking advice from fellow Friends, inappropriate speculation, discipline, and much more. With an increased number of Quakers experiencing worldly success, there was even a section for the children of rich Quakers to ensure they were not corrupted but fixed “their hopes of happiness on that which is substantial and eternal.” The love of money “was a snare, which is apt to increase imperceptibly . . . and gradually withdraw the heart from God.”

  Richard and George Cadbury’s entire worldview was shaped by Quaker values. This outlook molded their early childhood experiences, their learning as apprentices, their social and marriage opportunities, their choice of career, and their deeper understanding of the wider purpose of their chocolate business.

  From their earliest years, they had seen their father endeavor to apply Quaker ideals in the community. According to Alfred Gardiner, John Cadbury was deeply concerned about “the savage indifference to the child.” This was before Charles Dickens made Victorian society take notice of the plight of the “parish boy” and the “little workus” in his description of the recruitment of child criminals in Oliver Twist in 1838. In the 1820s, when John Cadbury was developing his shop on Bull Street, it was not uncommon for children in the workhouses to be carted off “like slaves to the cotton mills of Lancashire or to the mines.”

  John’s greatest outrage was reserved for the practice of using young boys as chimney sweeps: on May 13, 1889, the Daily Gazette describes how he “vigorously condemned the barbarous practice.” He discovered that children as young as five were being taken from workhouses and forced to climb chimneys to clean out the soot. Some chimneys were as narrow as seven inches square, and the children could only be induced to climb up when straw was lit beneath them or they were prodded with pins. Before they grew too big to be useful, many suffered twisted spines or damaged joints, or they were maimed by falls or burns. John was informed of a machine that could clean chimneys and “had the courage to call a meeting of Master Sweeps in the Town Hall,” reported the Gazette. But his demonstration of the new machine met with strong opposition, mostly from the sweeps themselves, who were convinced they got a better result using boys.

  A letter survives from John Cadbury to the Duke of Sutherland, who was chairing a House of Lords investigation into the use of climbing boys. John explained that in Birmingham he tried to win the sweeps over by supplying them with the machines himself. But still his campaign did not go smoothly. “Much prejudice against the machine has been raised,” John informed the duke, because the master sweeps “have very improperly worked the machine and said and done all they could to prejudice . . . minds against them.” John was so concerned he sent a signed petition to the House of Commons lobbying for a change in the law. He was delighted when legislation was eventually introduced banning the use of climbing boys.

  George and Richard watched their parents become passionately involved in another major social issue of the time: alcoholism. The consumption of gin had become widespread in the eighteenth century. Many traditional pubs and alehouses were replaced by gin shops, which promised sweet oblivion with the tantalizing slogan: “Drunk for a penny. Dead drunk for two pence. Clean straw for nothing.” This “liquid fire,” in the words of (London magistrate) John Fielding, led to nothing less than “hell.” The painter and social critic William Hogarth wrote of “Distress even to madness and death.” Reports of children dying of neglect from drunken parents were commonplace. There were even accounts of children killed by their parents; their clothes provided a pittance for more gin.

  John Cadbury’s estimates suggested that one in thirteen households in Birmingham were somehow involved in the drink trade, and the majority of applicants for Poor Rate relief (a subsistence provided by the parish) were drawn from families with alcohol problems.

  Candia and John were keen supporters of the Temperance Movement. In 1834, John publicly signed up to become a total abstainer, and he and Candia vigorously took on the town’s drinkers and even the “Moderation Society,” which tolerated modest drinking, with a “Total Abstinence Plan.” According to an account on April 22, 1854, in The Journal, John’s talks were packed with information. On this particular occasion, he told a concerned gathering in the town hall that he and his friends had “travelled through every street in Birmingham” and established that there were “593 licensed victuellers and 975 beer houses, amongst 45,844 inhabited houses, with around one house in every thirty dedicated to the sale of intoxicating drinks. His research had also led him to believe that there were 6,593 drunkards in Birmingham, of which an estimated 10 percent—659 people—died each year.

  Another sad tale recorded in Richard Cadbury’s family book concerns the formidable old Birmingham workhouse, which was then at the bottom of Lichfield Street and Steel House Lane. When John arrived for his first meeting as an Overseer of the Poor, he was dismayed to discover the distinguished committee, in true Dickensian style, met once a month for a “sumptuous repast” in which members filled 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 holding such banquets. Evidently his enthusiasm “incurred much 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 this practice stopped.

  John 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 per hour and put pressure on proprietors to take action. As chair of the Markets and Fairs Committee, he dealt with unwholesome meats and fraudulent trading. And he won funds as governor of the Birmingham General to develop the hospital. There was, declared the Daily Gazette on May 13, 1889, a widespread belief “that the poor were operated on for the sake of medical science,” 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 towards society’s less privileged members was a mantle that George and Richard accepted as an essential Quaker duty. They saw it as their moral responsibility to improve the plight of those in
the industrial slums. Quaker idealism lay at the very heart of their business goals. Saving the chocolate factory held out the promise of providing employment, helping the workforce, and by extension the entire community. Even more fundamental, by developing and promoting cocoa as a drink that everyone could afford, they aimed to provide nutritious alternatives to alcohol and stop the spread of “mother’s ruin.”

  Despite their diminishing inheritance, George and Richard persevered with reforming zeal. George saw the relationship with the employees as key. Sitting in the stockroom at 6:00 AM over breakfast, he encouraged workers to discuss issues in their lives, or he 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 seem paternalistic and even intrusive, but at a time when people could not read, it was 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 very 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 organized, 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 for 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 “boneshaker” bicycle—with iron-rimmed wheels, no springs, and no ball bearings—was extremely popular, and anyone could take it home if they could learn to ride it. Richard and George were among the first employers in Birmingham to introduce half days on Saturday and bank holidays. They even took the staff on leisure outings.

  According to the Daily Post on June 21, 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,” reports 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 the business experience grew, George and Richard were conscious that a paternal responsibility for the firm’s employees was falling gently on their 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. It was a way to improve society. It provided them with a means to create an ideal world that would benefit others right in the middle of the big sinful city. They would create a “model chocolate factory.”

  But first they had to learn how to make a profit.

  CHAPTER 4

  They Did Not Show Us Any Mercy

  No amount of prayers or hymns could solve one very particular problem. The Cadbury brothers faced stiff competition. The English manufacturers “showed no mercy,” claimed George, although they spoke with a friendly face and a reasonable voice. From the cramped offices of the Cadbury brothers’ modest factory, their rivals looked unassailable. Expertly they sailed on the great seas of commerce. They made it look easy, inviting, like an adventure.

  In London the Taylor Brothers claimed to be the largest cocoa and mustard manufacturers in Europe. A picture of their Spitalfield works in the east end, proudly depicted on their sales brochure, showed a vast complex of factories, mills, and smoking chimneys with horses and carriages gaily travelling to and fro and giving an impression of grandeur. In addition to mustard and chicory, their sales list boasted more than fifty different types of drinking cocoas, including all the familiar lines in Victorian England. Established in 1817, they had gained considerable expertise in cocoa preparation. They claimed their technical know-how guaranteed the removal of any noxious, greasy oiliness from their delicious products. The firm was huge and, surrounded by the ever-growing London population, continued to grow with seemingly unstoppable success.

  But the Taylors were not the only competition in the capital. They had rivals such as Messrs. Dunn and Hewett of Pentonville, who also sold an enterprising range of cocoas that included Vanilla Shilling Chocolate sold “unwrapped,” various types of Chocolate Sticks wrapped in tin foil, and a curious Patent Lentilized Chocolate sold in “half pound cannisters.” The early chocolate drinks made with powdered lentils, tapioca, dried peas, or sago to mop up the cocoa fats were possibly not for connoisseurs, but these thick, rich cocoa soups did satisfy the untried taste buds of many a Londoner. And for the really hard up, they promoted a slightly fatty “Plain Chocolate Sold in Drab Paper.”

  In addition to the commercial activity in London, there were regional centers of chocolate production, notably at York. As an apprentice, George Cadbury had witnessed the daring and confidence of Henry Rowntree on his entry into the world of the chocolatier. In 1860 Henry went to work in the cocoa and chicory business of the Tuke family, Quakers who were friends with the Rowntrees. Samuel Tuke had run the business, but after his death, his sons were not interested in taking charge of the family concern. Within two years, Henry was able to buy out the cocoa division of Tuke & Company. Henry could see that the Tuke premises, situated in the narrow, winding Castlegate in the heart of the old city of York, were too cramped and he set out to expand his cocoa works.

  In buccaneer spirit he bought for £1000 what he called a “wonderful new machine” for grinding beans. Included in the sale were a motley collection of old buildings, which he optimistically described as his chocolate factory—an ironworks, a tavern, and several cottages in various stages of disrepair at Tanner’s Moat—the whole enterprise practically falling into the putrid-smelling River Ouse. Henry explored the larger premises with enthusiasm, smelling only chocolate as he glimpsed the river’s black and treacherous water.

  The company’s leading brand had been Tuke’s Superior Rock Cocoa, which Henry duly relabelled Rowntree’s Prize Medal Rock Cocoa after it won a prize at a local fair. To keep customers loyal, Henry extolled the virtues of his Rowntree’s Rock Cocoa compared to rival brands. He evidently had a sense of humor and would raise a smile with a quip from Deuteronomy, no doubt appreciated by listeners who knew their Bible: “For their Rock is not as our Rock, even our enemies themselves being judges.” As he embarked on transforming Tanner’s Moat works into a modern factory that could churn out Rowntree’s Rock Cocoa to sell across England, Henry could smell the future. He had the support of his older brother, Joseph, who was running the Rowntree’s grocery shop in the center of York. George Cadbury knew that the Rowntrees had the determination to succeed.

  There were other firms in York poised to benefit from the arrival of the railway. By the middle of the nineteenth century, some twelve trains a day leaving London could deliver 250,000 visitors to York over the year. Joseph Terry and his brothers, who had inherited their father’s confectionery business in 1854, took advantage of the new opportunities. Starting back in 1767, their forebears had sold boiled sweets and candied peel to the rich. Over the generations, the Terrys established a reputation for a range of sugar-based confections sold in their enticing sweet shop not far from Rowntree’s grocery shop. Just to open the shop door invited the unwary customer into a magical Hansel and Gretel world of sugared strawberries, raspberries, lemons, and oranges.

  With the arrival of the railways, Joseph Terry was soon selling to customers in more than seventy-five towns across the Midlands and the north of England. To meet rising demand, he moved his manufacturing in 1862 to a larger site just outside the city walls. Here the twice-weekly ste
am packet brought exotic fruits and cocoa. In the 1860s, Joseph Terry was looking closely at how to diversify his range of sweetmeats to make more use of cocoa in chocolate-covered nuts and sweets.

  But the Cadburys—and the other chocolate manufacturers—faced their stiffest competition in a giant Quaker concern in Bristol: Fry and Sons. The Frys ran the largest cocoa works in the world, so large that it was fast shaping the city of Bristol. Their factory was the size of a small town, and their sprawling works easily accommodated the varied processes of production. This was cocoa making for England. The Cadburys’ little plant could not compete.

  George Cadbury was intrigued. “I never looked at the small people or the people who had failed,” he declared. “I wanted to know how men succeeded, and it was their methods I examined, and if I thought them good, applied.” Through the Quaker network, George was able to approach the Frys in Bristol and found a partner, Francis James Fry, who was prepared to take him under his wing. Francis Fry and George Cadbury formed a loose alliance of English cocoa makers, which met for convenience in the London offices of the Taylor brothers. “I suppose we had some energy,” George recalled years later. “For Francis James Fry elected to go round with me to see the Cocoa and Chocolate Manufacturers.” George was surprised, remarking, “I was a young man in a small business compared to his.” A year older than George, Francis James was the fourth generation in his family’s firm. With Fry’s sales approaching a colossal £100,000 a year, Francis was secure in the knowledge that the young Cadbury brothers were no threat.

  George Cadbury had everything to learn about the development of a family firm from his Fry counterpart—and learn he did. The Bristol firm, he noted, from the earliest years had an outstanding reputation for innovation.