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The Cadbury Family

Dennis Williams

Dennis Williams

Gone but not forgotten
Now we come to one of the most important and prolific families in Brum’s history - the CADBURYS. And there are a heck of a lot of them! There is much written about various branches of their commercial empires, and their many collective contributions to our City’s history and development, both on the Web, and on this Site, from previous contributors, notably Colin B; but I am going to try and put them in some sort of order for easy reference if I may, and litter the story with more pictures. Inevitably there will be repetition and overlap, for which I apologise in advance. I hope I do not tread on anybody’s toes… Any gross omissions will hopefully be put right by you, the many magnificent historians and sleuths lurking out there. https://birminghamhistory.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?t=36079

So where to begin? First a broad introductory resume by the immaculate Vivian Bird from his “Portrait of Birmingham” book dated 1970

RICHARD TAPPER CADBURY, descended from a line of West Country yeomen and woolcombers, started business in Binninghamas a silk mercer in 1794. He and his son, John, both Street Commissioners, were members of the committee which arranged the transfer of the commissioners' powers to the town council.



John had a tea and coffee business in Bull Street, but later he established a cocoa and chocolate factory in Crooked Lane, moving on to Bridge Street, off Broad Street, where eventually his sons, George and Richard, took over. In 1879 they erected a larger factory 4 miles from the city centre, calling Bournville, a name which Cadbury's chocolate and cocoa have made famous throughout the world.

It was a revolutionary move to take industry out of industrial surroundings, but for a food factory this semi-countryside was the right place. The Cadbury brothers were model employers paying more, giving shorter hours and a weekly half-holiday, and pioneering medical and dental services, sport facilities, pensions, and paid holidays.

Riding on horseback to a Men's Adult School in Severn Street, off Suffolk Street, early every Sunday morning, George Cadbury saw very bad housing and learned something about the unhappy human outcome of restricted home conditions. Note: The Severn Street school was opened by Joseph Sturge and his brother in 1845, when Richard Cadbury was 10 years old. In spite of its small beginnings, the School grew during his lifetime to thirty eight branch schools in different parts of Birmingham, numbering nearly 6000 scholars on their books. And it is still extant...



He concluded that a man and his family would lead happier, healthier, and more useful lives if their homes were more spacious and provided with gardens. So he began building such houses at low rents for his and other workers on land near the Bournville factory.

In I900 he founded the Bournville Village Trust, the trust deed decreeing that a house should occupy only a quarter of its site, the remainder being garden; that no factory should occupy more than a fifteenth of the site where it was built, and that roads should be wide with ample open spaces in the area. Bournville was incorporated in Birmingham in 1911, and a charming sylvan place it is, with its famous carillon tower facing the factory across the smooth greensward of extensive playing fields.

Over 9,000 are employed at Bournville, and it is doubtful if any factory in Britain entertained more visitors at the height of Cadburys' hospitality. They came in a constant procession of coaches, up to 100,000 annually, a policy that was being steadily curtailed as the firm reviewed any possible benefit that accrued from it, so that such visits ended completely in 1970. The Cadburys were teetotallers, and intoxicants are not allowed in the Bournville Works, where-very civilised indeed-the smoking which is naturally banned on the production lines is also prohibited in the offices. Bournville Estate is without a pub, and not until I969 was permission granted to the four residents' associations to apply for an occasional liquor licence for certain functions.





March 1969 saw a merger resulting in the name Cadbury Schweppes Ltd. - an alien sound to one brought up anywhere within sniffing distance of Bournville chocolate, which pervades the air for miles around in the right conditions of humidity and wind direction.

In 1943 Cadbury Bros. Ltd. published an educational booklet Our Birmingham, which asserted, "We have shown that Birmingham is already too big. It must not be allowed to grow still bigger. Further building on the outskirts of Birmingham should be forbidden, and a green belt of fields and farms should be preserved." Excellent, but instead, said the booklet, new towns of 30,000-50,000 population might be built beyond the green belt, complete in themselves with industries, amusements, and schools, and linked with Birmingham by fast roads and trains. This parochial passing of the buck; this attempt to sweep a city's urbanisation far beyond its boundaries, might be all right with a fixed population nationally, but not with one rapidly increasing. Birmingham's experience subsequent to 1943 has shown that the rape of the immediate green belt goes hand in glove..

More on Richard Tapper Cadbury, the Grandfather..

Richard Tapper Cadbury (1768 –1860) came to Birmingham in 1794 and started a linen draper's business in partnership with a fellow Quaker. Cadbury came from Exeter and he was born around 1768. His father was a maker of serge and he was apprenticed to a draper in Gloucester, after which he worked for others in the town. He entered into partnership with Joseph Rutte in Birmingham from 1794, and he married Elizabeth Head from Ipswich in 1796. Two years later the partnership with Rutte was dissolved. No idea why.

They had ten children: John, James, Ann, Maria, Lucretia, Sarah, Emma Joel, Elizabeth Head, Richard, Benjamin Head, and Joel. In addition, his wife Elizabeth ran the business in his absence. They lived in Islington Row (now Broad Street), and they had a sizable shop in Bull Street in the city centre selling silks and fabrics. The highlighted sons did the business with him...



And in 1824, Cadbury senior financed John Cadbury to start a tea and coffee business next door at No 93; Benjamin ran the main business from 1829. Richard was given a wage and was able to take on good works.
Cadbury continued to develop the business, but also took a role in civil affairs. He served on Birmingham General Hospital's Board and that of the Eye Hospital as well as getting involved in the affairs of the Town Council.

Cadbury was an abolitionist and in 1840 attended the World's Anti-Slavery Convention at Freemasons' Hall, London. Delegates came from several different countries and a commemorative painting, now displayed in the National Portrait Gallery, records all the notable people who were present. Tapper Cadbury is right at the back of the crowd and his portrait is one of the smallest.

Cadbury died in 1860, the same year that John Cadbury broke his financial links with his brother and shortly after left the business to be run in turn by his sons.
 
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John Cadbury‬

John Cadbury (1801 –1889) was the son of Richard Tapper Cadbury. As a Quaker in the early 19th century, he was not allowed to enter a university, so could not pursue a profession such as medicine or law. As Quakers are pacifist, a military career was also out of the question. So, like many other Quakers of the time, he turned his energies toward business and began a campaign against animal cruelty, forming the Animals Friend Society, a forerunner of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.



The Quaker Influence
The Cadbury family were prominent members of the Society of Friends or Quakers, one of the many nonconformist religious groups formed in the 17th century. Their strong beliefs carried into campaigns aimed at ending poverty and deprivation and many prominent Quaker-run businesses were part of reforms of social and industrial society in Victorian Britain. John Cadbury's lifelong involvement with the Temperance Society influenced the direction of his business enterprise. By providing tea, coffee, cocoa and chocolate as an alternative to alcohol he felt he was helping to alleviate some of the alcolohol-related causes of poverty and deprivation amongst working people. He also incorporated some of these principles in his industrial relations philosophy.

BUSINESS

In 1824, 22-year-old John Cadbury opened his first shop at 93 Bull Street, next to his father's drapery and silk business in the then fashionable part of Birmingham.

93 Bull Street shop, next door at 92 was Benjamin Head Cadbury's silk shop...



Apart from selling tea and coffee, John Cadbury sold hops, mustard and a new sideline - cocoa and drinking chocolate, which he prepared using a mortar and pestle.

Cocoa and drinking chocolate had been introduced into England in the 1650s but remained a luxury enjoyed by the elite of English society. Customers at John Cadbury's shop were amongst the most prosperous Birmingham families, the only ones who could afford the delicacy. Cocoa beans were imported from South and Central America and the West Indies.

Experimenting with his mortar and pestle, John Cadbury produced a range of cocoa and chocolate drinks, the latter with added sugar. The products were sold in blocks: customers scraped a little off into a cup or saucepan and added hot milk or water.

John Cadbury had a considerable flair for advertising and promotion. "John Cadbury is desirous of introducing to particular notice 'Cocoa Nibs', prepared by himself, an article affording a most nutritious beverage for breakfast," announced his first advertisement in the Birmingham Gazette in March 1824.
He soon established himself as one of the leading cocoa and drinking chocolate traders in Birmingham. The popularity and growing sales of John Cadbury's cocoa and drinking chocolate of 'superior quality' determined the future direction of the business.

In 1831, John Cadbury rented a small factory in Crooked Lane not far from his shop. He became a manufacturer of drinking chocolate and cocoa, laying the foundation for the Cadbury chocolate business.



These early cocoa and drinking chocolates were balanced with potato starch and sago flour to counter the high cocoa butter content, while other ingredients were added to give healthy properties.
By 1842, John Cadbury was selling sixteen lines of drinking chocolate and cocoa in cake and powder forms.

As the enterprise prospered, in 1847 John Cadbury rented a larger factory in Bridge Street, off Broad Street, in the centre of Birmingham and went into partnership with his brother Benjamin - trading as Cadbury Brothers of Birmingham.





The retail side of the business in Bull Street was passed to a nephew, Richard Cadbury Barrow in 1849. Barrow Stores, as it became, traded in Central Birmingham until the 1960s. More later...

John married twice. He married Priscilla Ann Dymond (1799–1828), in 1826, but she died two years later. In 1832 he married his second wife, Candia Barrow (1805–1855) and had seven children: John (1834–1866), Richard (1835–1899), Maria (1838–1908), George (1839–1922), Joseph (1841–1841), Edward (1843–1866), and Henry (1845–1875).

Benjamin and John Cadbury dissolved their partnership in 1860. John retired in 1861 due to the death of his wife, and his sons Richard and George succeeded him in the business. In 1879 they relocated to an area of what was then north Worcestershire, on the borders of the parishes of Northfield and King's Norton centred on the Georgian built Bournbrook Hall, where they developed the garden village of Bournville; now a major suburb of Birmingham.

The family developed the Cadbury's factory, which remains a key site of Cadbury. The district around the factory has been 'dry' for over 100 years, with no alcohol being sold in pubs, bars or shops. Residents have fought to maintain this, winning a court battle in March 2007 with Britain's biggest supermarket chain Tesco, to prevent it selling alcohol in its local outlet. For the remainder of his life, John Cadbury engaged in civic and social work in Birmingham.
 
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Richard Barrow Cadbury (29 August 1835 – 22 March 1899) was the second son of the Quaker John Cadbury, founder of Cadbury's cocoa and chocolate company.



Together with his younger brother George he took over the family business in 1861 and in 1878 they acquired 14 acres of land in open country, four miles south of Birmingham where they opened a new factory in 1879. Over the following years, more land was acquired and a model village was built for his workers which became known as Bournville. He and his faimly lived at 17 Wheeleys Rd Edgbaston, which sports a nice Blue Plaque to that effect for it's sins....

His story is told in amazing detail by his daughter Helen Cadbury Alexander here https://archive.org/stream/richardcadbur ... 5/mode/2up

To me his most famous legacy was Moseley Hall, which has been mentioned on this thread before...here's some notes...



Previously the home of John Taylor, the button manufacturer. From 1884 Richard Cadbury J. P., one of the famous Cadbury Brothers of Bournville lived at the Hall with his family. During his tenancy the grounds were used annually for Band of Hope fetes. When William Francis Taylor died in '89 the estates were offered for sale. Tenants of the villas in Strensham and Augusta Roads were able to buy their freeholds, and Cadbury bought the Hall and 22 acres for £16,450. These he presented to the City of Birmingham in '91 for use as a children's convalescent home. Fencing of the grounds and a generous endowment brought his total outlay to £30,000. Cadbury had also bought the Henburies estate, and he moved to his newly-built mansion, Uffculme. Fours years later he demolished Henburies House. When he died in 1916 Uffculme was left to the City : it was then is use as a hospital, like Joseph Chamberlain's Highbury and Moor Green Halls. The grounds became a public park.




At Moseley Hall undistinguished additions were made to fit it for its intended use. A veranda was built above the porch. By this time the wings were wholly clad in ivy, and shrubberies and plantations were at maturity. Fund-raising events were held in the reduced grounds until World War I. The rest of the part was expected to go for villas with large gardens. Moseley was a desirable address for the middle classes with fresh air, shops, churches (St. Anne's on park land built with Anderton money in '74, the Baptist Church on Oxford Road in '84), a flourishing social and cultural life, good train services to Birmingham, even steam tramcars.
Chantry Road was out in the early '90s and Salisbury Road in '96, named in honour of the then Prime Minister. It cut the park in two, and there was a strong possibility that the pool would be drained and overbuilt. To prevent this, nine local businessmen formed Moseley Park and Pool Estate Company and leased 14 acres about the pool, bounded by the garden lines of Salisbury and Chantry Roads. The pool was cleaned, the new park was laid out, and the shareholders began to build houses backing onto it. Austin Chamberlain the local M. P. officially opened the park in 1899.

The making of Victoria Parade in 1900 caused the demolition of the old park lodge, wall, and gates, and the loss of part of an elm rookery and bluebell wood. Reddings and Amesbury Roads were laid along the lines of the old footpaths during Edward VII's reign, and during the Twenties almost the whole of the Alcester Road boundary of the Grevises' park was built up. The lodge beside the dovecote was replaced in '35. Since World War II the Hall has been a haven for old people, and it is now only a part of a large Geriatric Centre. The park and pool survive, a tranquil oasis sheltered from the endless traffic of the 'bus routes.

Here's a page from his family book showing his childhood (one of them) family house in 51 Calthorpe Road...and his rellies...

 
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Then there was dear George...

George Cadbury (19 September 1839 – 24 October 1922) was the third son of John Cadbury.


He worked at the Severn Street school for adults on Sundays for no pay, despite only going to school himself until he was sixteen. Together with his brother Richard he took over the family business in 1861. In 1878 they acquired 14 acres of land in open country, four miles south of Birmingham, where they opened a new factory in 1879. He rented 'Woodbrooke' a Georgian style mansion built by Josiah Mason, which he eventually bought in 1881. In the early 20th century, he and John Wilhelm Rowntree established a Quaker study centre in the building, and it remains the only such centre in Europe today, offering short educational courses on spiritual and social matters to Quakers and others.



Woodbrooke



Old Quaker Meeting House in Bull Street...still going after a rebuild..


The Cadbury brothers were concerned with the quality of life of their employees and provided an alternative to grimy city life. As more land was acquired and the brothers moved the factory to a new country location, they decided to build a factory town (designed by architect William Alexander Harvey), which was not exclusive to the employees of the factory. This village became known as Bournville after the nearby river and French word for "town". The houses were never privately owned, and their value stayed low and affordable. Bournville was a marked change from the poor living conditions of the urban environment. Here, families had houses with yards, gardens, and fresh air. To the present, the town offers affordable housing.

The brothers cared for their employees; they both believed in the social rights of the workers and hence they installed canteens and sport grounds. Nineteen years after brother Richard died, George opened a works committee for each gender which discussed proposals for improving the firm. He also pressed ahead with other ideas, like an annuity, a deposit account and education facilities for every employee.

In 1901, disgusted by the imperialistic policy of the Balfour government and opposed to the Boer War, Cadbury bought the Daily News and used the paper to campaign for old age pensions and against the war and sweatshop labour. George Cadbury was one of the prime movers in setting up The Birmingham Civic Society in 1918. Cadbury donated the Lickey Hills Country Park to the people of Birmingham. He also donated a large house in Northfield to the Birmingham Cripples Union that was used as a hospital from 1909. It is now called the Royal Orthopaedic Hospital. In 1890 he, along with a number of other leading Quakers, helped re-establish Grove House School as Leighton Park School in Reading as the leading Quaker school in Britain.

He died at his home, Northfield Manor House, on 24 October 1922, aged 83.

George Cadbury married twice. In 1872 he married Mary Tylor, daughter of Quaker author Charles Tylor: she died in 1887. She was the mother of George junior, Mary Isabel and Edward.
In 1888 he married Elizabeth Mary Taylor. They had six children together: Laurence John, George Norman, Elsie Dorothea, Egbert, Marion Janet and Ursula. They lived in George Road, Edgbaston.

They also left us Friends Hall on the Moseley Road...which is also still going...just...




PLUS the Lickey Hills owes a lot to George and his family...as this note attests..

"The hills had been a royal hunting reserve belonging to the Manor of Bromsgrove. Free public open access began in 1888 when Rednal Hill was bought by the Birmingham Society for the Preservation of Open Space. The Society then presented it to the City of Birmingham in trust. Pinfield Wood and Bilberry Hill were then leased at a nominal rent. Beacon Hill was bought by Edward, George and Henry Cadbury in 1907 and then given to the City of Birmingham. Cofton Hill, Lickey Warren and Pinfield Wood were bought in 1920. The final stage in restoring public access to the area was the purchase of the Rose Hill Estate from the Cadbury family in 1923. No part of the Lickey Hills Country Park is within the city boundary, but most Brummies consider it 'theirs'..
 
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And last but not least...the only reason I'm here, writing this waffle, is my heroine...DAME ELIZABETH CADBURY...and one of the most incredible benefactors we will ever know..


Elizabeth Cadbury

Born in Peckham Rye, London, she was one of ten children of the Quaker company director and stockbroker John Taylor (d.1894) and his wife, Mary Jane Cash (d.1887). She grew up in an affluent family background. Her parents were active temperance crusaders, and enthusiasts for the adult education provided by mechanics' institutes. She and her sister Margaret were educated privately in Germany, and Elizabeth then attended North London Collegiate School from 1874–76. In 1876 she passed the senior Cambridge University examination in ten subjects, but did not enter higher education. On leaving school she did social work in the London docks and Paris, as well as teaching at the Sunday school of her Quaker meeting.

In 1888 she married George Cadbury, then a widower with five children. They had six children together as well: Laurence John, George Norman, Elsie Dorothea, Egbert, Marion Janet and Ursula.

She and her husband played a great role in the development of Bournville and opened the 200th house there herself. In 1909 she opened the Woodland Hospital, which became the Royal Orthopaedic Hospital. She also built The Beeches, to provide holidays for slum children. She chaired the Birmingham school medical service committee and worked energetically to provide medical inspection in schools. From 1941 to 1948 she was president of the United Hospital in Birmingham. Throughout her life she campaigned for the education and welfare of women as a convinced but non-militant suffragist.

The founder in 1898 of the Birmingham Union of Girls' Clubs, she was active in the YWCA and in the National Council for Women from 1896 to her death. In 1936, at the age of seventy-eight, she led the UK delegation to the World Congress of the International Council of Women, held in Calcutta.
An active pacifist she was the first chair of the Peace and International Relations Committee of the National Council of Women, established in 1914. In 1916 she was elected to the National Peace Council, becoming its treasurer and then its vice-president. Along with Lady Aberdeen, Millicent Fawcett, and Mrs Corbett Ashby, she pressed for the inclusion of women's issues in the agenda of the Congress of Versailles. She was an energetic supporter of the League of Nations Union. During the Second World War, she worked with Belgian refugees, and after that war continued her efforts with the International Council of Women.

In national politics Elizabeth Cadbury's sympathies were similar to those usually associated with Christian socialism, and she was a pillar of the Liberal Party. She was a Birmingham city councillor, for King's Norton ward, from 1919 to 1924, as a Liberal, losing her seat to a Conservative. Her political platform was a reformist one: municipal action in housing improvement, a school health service, and equality of opportunity. Among her political successes were her co-option to the Birmingham education committee in 1919, and her services as a magistrate from 1926. Cadbury also fought the King's Norton Parliamentary seat for the Liberals at the 1923 general election coming third but maintaining the Liberal share of the vote at 25%.

The family home was Woodbrooke in Selly Oak, Birmingham until 1894 when they moved to the Manor House, Northfield, Birmingham. They lived there together until George's death in 1922, and Elizabeth Cadbury resided there until her own death in 1951, aged 93. In 1948, at the family gathering to celebrate her ninetieth birthday, there were 150 relatives. At her death, Elizabeth Cadbury was survived by, among others, 37 grandchildren and 49 great-grandchildren.

Unbeknown to her of course, was the part played in my existence...for it was at the Dame Elizabeth Cadbury House YWCA, Stechford, that I was begat. Well not the actual place, but where mom met dad. The rest followed somewhere else...In fact most of my dad's family met their wives at Dances there...and I met my wife at the Youth Club there circa 1955....so, it's a very important place for the Willies et al... Dad was a Dance Band singer in the War Years and played the Wydub as it was known, many times, and as he lived about fifty yards from it in Denton Grove opposite, he didn't have far to go home...here's a few pics..


YWCA circa 1940s



A rainbow from our front garden...




Dad's clip for a gig there...
 
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Re: Some great men of Birmingham..

Thanks also for the photos of Barrows on Bull Street. Seeing McConville's dress shops reminds me of my Mother who loved to
shop there. I remember they had very attractive shopping bags to take home your purchases. Barrow's was a wonderful store just to
walk into.
 
When the Cadbury factory moved in 1879, Cadbury erected 24 workmen’s cottages that would later form the nucleus of the Bournville village development. This was accompanied by aquisition of areas in Stirchley and Northfield. In 1893 Cadbury started buying land for the development of Bournville and building work started 2 years later.

Initially Cadbury let the land on leases of 999 years, but exerted considerable influence on the development. However later Cadbury became convinced that the regulations were not stringent enough and in 1900 introduced radical changes. To safeguard his aims and to provide a guard against property speculation he handed the Estate over to a Trust, and replaced the opportunity to purchase with a leasehold system.

The Trust Deed ensured that the Cadbury influence did not diminish and control became firmly and permanently entrenched, control of the estate remaining firmly vested in the hands of the family.
 
Dennis Williams said:
Now we come to one of the most important and prolific families in Brum’s history - the CADBURYS. And there are a heck of a lot of them! There is much written about various branches of their commercial empires, and their many collective contributions to our City’s history and development, both on the Web, and on this Site, from previous contributors, notably Colin B; but I am going to try and put them in some sort of order for easy reference if I may, and litter the story with more pictures. Inevitably there will be repetition and overlap, for which I apologise in advance. I hope I do not tread on anybody’s toes… Any gross omissions will hopefully be put right by you, the many magnificent historians and sleuths lurking out there. https://birminghamhistory.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?t=36079

So where to begin? First a broad introductory resume by the immaculate Vivian Bird from his “Portrait of Birmingham” book dated 1970

RICHARD TAPPER CADBURY, descended from a line of West Country yeomen and woolcombers, started business in Binninghamas a silk mercer in 1794. He and his son, John, both Street Commissioners, were members of the committee which arranged the transfer of the commissioners' powers to the town council.



John had a tea and coffee business in Bull Street, but later he established a cocoa and chocolate factory in Crooked Lane, moving on to Bridge Street, off Broad Street, where eventually his sons, George and Richard, took over. In 1879 they erected a larger factory 4 miles from the city centre, calling Bournville, a name which Cadbury's chocolate and cocoa have made famous throughout the world.

It was a revolutionary move to take industry out of industrial surroundings, but for a food factory this semi-countryside was the right place. The Cadbury brothers were model employers paying more, giving shorter hours and a weekly half-holiday, and pioneering medical and dental services, sport facilities, pensions, and paid holidays.

Riding on horseback to a Men's Adult School in Severn Street, off Suffolk Street, early every Sunday morning, George Cadbury saw very bad housing and learned something about the unhappy human outcome of restricted home conditions. Note: The Severn Street school was opened by Joseph Sturge and his brother in 1845, when Richard Cadbury was 10 years old. In spite of its small beginnings, the School grew during his lifetime to thirty eight branch schools in different parts of Birmingham, numbering nearly 6000 scholars on their books. And it is still extant...



He concluded that a man and his family would lead happier, healthier, and more useful lives if their homes were more spacious and provided with gardens. So he began building such houses at low rents for his and other workers on land near the Bournville factory.

In I900 he founded the Bournville Village Trust, the trust deed decreeing that a house should occupy only a quarter of its site, the remainder being garden; that no factory should occupy more than a fifteenth of the site where it was built, and that roads should be wide with ample open spaces in the area. Bournville was incorporated in Birmingham in 1911, and a charming sylvan place it is, with its famous carillon tower facing the factory across the smooth greensward of extensive playing fields.

Over 9,000 are employed at Bournville, and it is doubtful if any factory in Britain entertained more visitors at the height of Cadburys' hospitality. They came in a constant procession of coaches, up to 100,000 annually, a policy that was being steadily curtailed as the firm reviewed any possible benefit that accrued from it, so that such visits ended completely in 1970. The Cadburys were teetotallers, and intoxicants are not allowed in the Bournville Works, where-very civilised indeed-the smoking which is naturally banned on the production lines is also prohibited in the offices. Bournville Estate is without a pub, and not until I969 was permission granted to the four residents' associations to apply for an occasional liquor licence for certain functions.





March 1969 saw a merger resulting in the name Cadbury Schweppes Ltd. - an alien sound to one brought up anywhere within sniffing distance of Bournville chocolate, which pervades the air for miles around in the right conditions of humidity and wind direction.

In 1943 Cadbury Bros. Ltd. published an educational booklet Our Birmingham, which asserted, "We have shown that Birmingham is already too big. It must not be allowed to grow still bigger. Further building on the outskirts of Birmingham should be forbidden, and a green belt of fields and farms should be preserved." Excellent, but instead, said the booklet, new towns of 30,000-50,000 population might be built beyond the green belt, complete in themselves with industries, amusements, and schools, and linked with Birmingham by fast roads and trains. This parochial passing of the buck; this attempt to sweep a city's urbanisation far beyond its boundaries, might be all right with a fixed population nationally, but not with one rapidly increasing. Birmingham's experience subsequent to 1943 has shown that the rape of the immediate green belt goes hand in glove..

More on Richard Tapper Cadbury, the Grandfather..

Richard Tapper Cadbury (1768 –1860) came to Birmingham in 1794 and started a linen draper's business in partnership with a fellow Quaker. Cadbury came from Exeter and he was born around 1768. His father was a maker of serge and he was apprenticed to a draper in Gloucester, after which he worked for others in the town. He entered into partnership with Joseph Rutte in Birmingham from 1794, and he married Elizabeth Head from Ipswich in 1796. Two years later the partnership with Rutte was dissolved. No idea why.

They had ten children: John, James, Ann, Maria, Lucretia, Sarah, Emma Joel, Elizabeth Head, Richard, Benjamin Head, and Joel. In addition, his wife Elizabeth ran the business in his absence. They lived in Islington Row (now Broad Street), and they had a sizable shop in Bull Street in the city centre selling silks and fabrics. The highlighted sons did the business with him...



And in 1824, Cadbury senior financed John Cadbury to start a tea and coffee business next door at No 93; Benjamin ran the main business from 1829. Richard was given a wage and was able to take on good works.
Cadbury continued to develop the business, but also took a role in civil affairs. He served on Birmingham General Hospital's Board and that of the Eye Hospital as well as getting involved in the affairs of the Town Council.

Cadbury was an abolitionist and in 1840 attended the World's Anti-Slavery Convention at Freemasons' Hall, London. Delegates came from several different countries and a commemorative painting, now displayed in the National Portrait Gallery, records all the notable people who were present. Tapper Cadbury is right at the back of the crowd and his portrait is one of the smallest.

Cadbury died in 1860, the same year that John Cadbury broke his financial links with his brother and shortly after left the business to be run in turn by his sons.
Click to expand...

June 1840...Dick Tapper didn't like kids in his garden...

IMG_2137.jpg
 
If not proven then it seems grossly unfair to have to pay damages. RTC, with all his money, should have paid it, unless there was something else not mentioned in the report.
 
thomas mc said:
Great company, most of it gave away for a few shellings
Click to expand...
Private Eye (2022)
“Cadbury, now owned by Mondelez, has become notorious for paying remarkably little tax. Eight years ago it made a profit of £96.4m and thanks to ingenuous accounting, managed to pay no corporation Tax.”
 
Two slight inaccuracies in that BBC report. In the 1970s the Cadbury club (which recently burnt down- displeasure from above?) did allow the sale of alcohol to members (employees and pensioners). After that, when Paul Cadbury (former chairman) visited the archives, which held family and Cadbury trust papers, and was next door to the club, would cross the road and deliberately not look in the direction of the club while he went past. Also, Cadbury did make special runs for the eeuropean market, containing no veg.fat, and had one standard item which conformed to the then European regulations. Frys chocolate Cream
 
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Does anyone have a street map showing where 93 Bull Street was, the site of John Cadbury's first shop? I've looked on the present maps (google) and looked for a Blue Plague but I can't see one. Perhaps a campaign should be started to erect one on the nearest building to the actual site, saying “near this spot was John Cadbury’s first shop, opened in 1824.
 
Congratulations to Cadbury's reaching this well deserved new milestone in their long illustrious part of Birmingham History. I went to school in Bournville between 1955 and 1961 and enjoyed the surrounding environment. Members of the Cadbury family always came to the school prize day
 
Phil
I can see no evidence that numbering changed at all since the shop was there. In that case no 93 would have been as view below, though not covering the whole area shown in the photo

ScreenHunter 126.jpg
 
mikejee said:
Phil
I can see no evidence that numbering changed at all since the shop was there. In that case no 93 would have been as view below, though not covering the whole area shown in the photo
Click to expand...
Thanks Mike,

Phil
 
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hi phil have i missed something...are we going to have a blue plaque for john cadbury ?

lyn
 
Astoness said:
hi phil have i missed something...are we going to have a blue plaque for john cadbury ?

lyn
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Hello Lyn, No, my post was originally asking if any one knew where 93 Bull Street is and was there a Blue Plague to commemorate John Cadbury?
Then Mike replied with a pic showing where 93 Bull Street is and a suggestion to where a plague should be. I followed it up, if a campaign to award a plague is granted, it would be better to put it lower down so everyone could see it. Will anyone step forward to start a campaign? Chocolate is worth celebrating.
 
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Phil B said:
Hello Lyn, No, my post was originally asking if any one knew where 93 Bull Street and was there a Blue Plague to commemorate John Cadbury?
Then Mike replied with a pic showing where 93 Bull Street is and a suggestion to where a plague should be. I followed it up, if a campaign to award a plague is granted, it would be better to put it lower down so everyone could see it. Will anyone step forward to start a compaign? Chocolate is worth celebrating.
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well phil i am surprised john cadbury does not have a blue plaque...lesser known people have and lets face it everyone knows the name caadbury...not sure how we go about asking for a blue plaque so maybe someone can advise i will also try and find out some info...

lyn
 
Astoness said:
well phil i am surprised john cadbury does not have a blue plaque...lesser known people have and lets face it everyone knows the name caadbury...not sure how we go about asking for a blue plaque so maybe someone can advise i will also try and find out some info...

lyn
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Hi Lyn, thanks for volunteering lets us know how it goes, good luck.....
 
phil i only said i would take a look to see how asking for a blue plaque works :D i bet its not that easy but we need info first so all hands to the pumps

lyn
 
Astoness said:
phil i only said i would take a look to see how asking for a blue plaque works :D i bet its not that easy but we need info first

lyn
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Hi Lyn, thanks for taking up the batten, when it arrives in the post let me know if you want it screwed to the wall? I'll send the wife over.
:grinning::):):)
 
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Pedrocut said:
Quiz question JC’s Blue plaque…

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Hello Perocut, I have seen the Blue plague for George Cadbury on 32 George Road but I would have thought there would have been one for his father John Cadbury's shop at 93 Bull Street in the city where it all started. Can you help Lyn with how to make this happen? Phil :rolleyes::joy:George Cadbury 32 George Rd Edgebaston.jpg
 
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