Chocolate Wars: The 150-Year Rivalry Between the World's Greatest Chocolate Makers (25 page)

For George Jr., it had been a “shattering blow” when his father had sternly ordered him to leave his science studies at London University two years earlier to join the family business. Impatient and mischievous—as a child, he rowed the maids to the island in the lake at the manor and left them there—now the burdensome role of joint managing director sat heavily on young shoulders. To his father, the culture of secondary education was unimportant compared to “the culture of the soul and earning a livelihood.” His son should apply his scientific skills to the needs of their new chemistry department.

The Cadbury team had struggled for ten years to find a formula that could beat the Swiss milk chocolate. Nothing seemed right.

Their first attempt, made with milk powder, was not launched until 1897 and was struggling to secure a foothold in the shops. Grocers preferred to stock Swiss chocolate because the public asked for it. Whatever combination of ingredients George Jr. and his team tried in the laboratory, their milk chocolate remained stubbornly coarse, dry, and unsaleable. Rumors were rife that both Rowntree and Fry were preparing to launch a milk chocolate brand.

George Jr. knew he had a young rival at Rowntree in Haxby Road in York. Like George Cadbury, Joseph Rowntree had turned his chocolate works into a limited liability company and passed the baton to the younger generation. His second son, twenty-eight-year-old Seebohm Rowntree, was running their research laboratory. He too had been tasked with developing products to rival the Swiss. For George Jr., there was no knowing what Rowntree might come up with. Joseph Rowntree’s nephew, Arnold, had already proved himself in areas where his uncle had been sadly lacking. What Joseph thought of as Arnold’s advertising “stunts” had served as a wakeup call. First there was the motorcar—at a time when such a thing was a novelty—with a gigantic tin of Rowntree’s Elect Cocoa attached, which rattled disconcertingly and demanded attention as it was paraded through towns. Then there was the Oxford and Cambridge boat race of 1897. Arnold had the temerity to cover a barge with posters for Elect Cocoa and sail it right through the course. It was nothing his uncle would have done, but it was yielding results. Sales of Elect Cocoa were taking off. As for the Frys, it was anyone’s guess what they might conjure up next.

After a short apprenticeship at chocolate factories on the continent, records show that George Jr. secured an invitation to tour Peter’s plant in Vevey, Switzerland. This prompted him to set up a specialist milk condensing plant at Bournville to investigate the best ways to evaporate milk in bulk without spoiling it. On outings every weekend in his shiny new Lanchester car—the modern one with the roof—George Jr. could see the dispiriting results of Cadbury’s first milk chocolate bar only too plainly in the shops. It was a disaster. The Swiss were winning hands down. They sold thirty tons of milk chocolate a week in Britain, where Cadbury could not manage
one ton. It was a shattering defeat. But what George Jr. came up with next would transform the fortunes of the company.

I
n Bournville, George Cadbury Sr., still chairman of the company, was able to step back from the day-to-day operation of the business. He was keen to use his time to expand his philanthropic interests. This was something he had discussed with his wife, and they had many plans.

Elsie had proved to be the perfect wife for George, capable, warm-hearted, and totally committed to Quaker principles. The manor resounded with the exuberant sounds of their growing family; by 1899 there were ten children from George’s first and second marriages. Portraits of the time capture the strength of the Victorian family. George, bearded and smiling beneath his top hat, has Elsie seated at his side. The teenagers are grouped behind them, the babies sit on their laps, and the younger children are arranged at their feet. The girls are good-looking with flowing hair, long skirts, and frilly white blouses. Even the young boys are dressed to copy their father in smart dark suits and ties. It is a portrait of success but not merely material success. Both parents believed that children must have a firm foundation from which to explore the world.

Despite the formality of the family pictures, Elsie was not one for stuffy restrictions. The children were left with their governesses during the day while Elsie went on rounds of public engagements. When she returned one day to find that her daughters Dolly and Molly had been sent to their rooms for the most unladylike act of climbing on the roof, she summoned them at once. She told them that all children should learn to take risks, without which they will have no chance to learn. As an ardent Quaker, Elsie was committed to good works, nothing if not zealous, even putting her holiday in jeopardy. It was not uncommon for George Sr., who liked to arrive thirty minutes early for a train, to go on ahead with the children in the pony and trap. Elsie, working for the poor until the last minute, would dash up as the whistle blew. “My recreation begins the moment I drop into a
comfortable railway carriage,” she told a friend, “having counted my family to see that none is missing.” On Sundays she played the organ installed in the oak room on the ground floor as the family gathered to sing hymns. George doted on her, and if they were apart, they wrote sometimes twice a day. “What a thing it is to be ruled by one’s wife,” he said.

Each year they threw open the grounds of the manor house for a party attended by children from some of the roughest districts of Birmingham. They built a large hall known as The Barn in the park to provide tea and refreshments for up to seven hundred children. George Sr., with his love of nature, believed strongly that every child should have access to playing outside in clean air. Games were organized in the open fields, but the star attraction was the open-air baths. More than fifty children could bathe at any one time, and for the young visitors, most of whom had no access to a bath, it was thrilling. The sun on their backs, the sparkling water always inviting, the boys from the inner cities had no desire to leave and would stay in all day, until they were blue and shivering and cleaner than they had been in years.

The parties at the Barn were just an informal beginning. George and Elsie had both witnessed the critical problems of urban industrial living: housing shortages, inner-city crowding, poverty, and the social problems that come with deprivation. George wanted to take a scientific approach to tackling these problems. He aimed to use Bournville as a testing ground for reform. As a Quaker, the business was not just to benefit the owners and the workers but also the local community and society at large.

Before George Cadbury could implement his plans, an outbreak of war raised difficult questions for how a man should best use his wealth. On October 11, 1899, an ill-equipped army of 35,000 Boers prepared to take on the British Empire. The Boers, a group of farmers of Dutch descent, had settled in the Orange Free State and the Transvaal in southern Africa, territories that were rich in mineral wealth. But there were many who agreed with the British mining magnate Cecil Rhodes that the British Empire should command a sweep of land from “the Cape to Cairo.”

George and Elsie were shocked at the way the national press fuelled the appetite for war. The brash new
Daily Mail
, under such rousing headers as “For Empire and Liberty,” glorified British prospects. “Brain for brain, body for body,” the paper assured its 750,000 readers, “the English speaking people are much more than a match for the Dutchman” despite “the trickery and cunning of men from the Low countries.” Patriotic crowds gathered in throngs to give an ovation to those stalwarts departing for the Cape, “equal to any that even victorious troops have ever been accorded on returning from a campaign.” In Waterloo station, soldiers departed to the triumphant crash of brass and cavalry bands. “All semblance of military order disappeared. The police were swept aside and men were borne, in many cases, shoulder high. . . . Even total strangers, carried away with enthusiasm broke into the ranks and insisted on carrying rifles and kitbags.”

George Cadbury was approached by a rising star of the Liberal Party, the radical Welshman David Lloyd George. He was opposed to the war and knew that George Cadbury shared his views. Lloyd George had a challenging proposal. The national press was speaking almost in one voice in favor of war and fuelling the jingoistic fervor of the public. Lloyd George was keen to ensure that the public heard alternative views. Very few papers dared to take on the establishment, challenge the policy on war, and probe the interests of the mine owners. The
Manchester Guardian
in the north and London’s
Morning Leader
in the south were the only papers consistently opposed to war. Lloyd George had a special interest in the
Daily News.
This once-radical paper had been founded by Charles Dickens in 1834 and had championed liberal reforms and social issues; now it was taking an editorial line that sanctioned the war. He asked George to join a syndicate to buy the paper.

George Cadbury was sympathetic to Lloyd George’s view. He believed that British diamond speculators and mine owners in southern Africa like Cecil Rhodes wanted to suppress the Boer government in the Transvaal to keep control of the mines for themselves. He abhorred the greed and imperialism masquerading as a just cause and like Lloyd George believed that the cost of the war was delaying social reforms at home. But he hesitated. The ownership of a national
newspaper would be a completely new venture. He had avoided a prominent role in politics when he turned down an invitation from William Gladstone in 1892 to stand as an MP. George wrestled with the decision. What was the best way to use his wealth to benefit society at large? Should he seek to influence and educate public opinion and present issues honestly through a national newspaper? Or should he develop his template at Bournville?

He told Lloyd George that he was reluctant to take on the
Daily News
, but he could make a small contribution. He paid for an early train to take copies of the
Morning Leader
each day to key towns between London and Sheffield so the public would be exposed to an alternative view. George’s greatest priority was his plan for Bournville. Ever mindful of the corrosive effects that great wealth can have on the soul, his first step, on which he had his wife’s complete support, was to partially disinherit his children.

T
here is a family picture that marks the day, December 14, 1900, when George Cadbury gave away his wealth. The Quaker parish he first established with 142 homes clustered around the chocolate works had blossomed into an idyllic English village with 370 cottages and 500 acres of land. Now he wanted to give it away to create the Bournville Village Trust. A large and solemn group had gathered in front of the Friends Meeting House on the village green to hear what he had to say.

“I am not rich as an American millionaire would count riches,” George declared. “My gift is in the bulk of my property outside of the business. . . . I have seriously considered how far a man is justified in giving away the heritage of his children and have come to the conclusion that my children will be all the better for being deprived of this money. Great wealth is not to be desired and in my experience it is more of a curse than a blessing to the families that possess it.”

He explained that six of his ten children were of an age to understand how this action affected them, “and they all entirely approve.”
Provision was made for “an insurance of a modest competence” for each child. Beyond this, it was up to them. Judging by the sober faces of the large family around him, the enormity of the decision and his high expectations of them were all too plain.

George Cadbury was the first English chocolate entrepreneur to create a trust, and his hopes for what it would accomplish are clear from the deeds. The aim of the Bournville Trust was for “the amelioration of the conditions of the working class and labouring population,” with a special emphasis on improving their quality of life with “improved dwellings with gardens and open spaces to be enjoyed therewith.” The homes were meant to be inhabited by a cross section of society and this was reflected in the price or the rent. At the time of the gift, 143 houses had already been sold to tenants on 999-year leases—some for as little as £150. The remaining 227 homes were let on varying rentals depending on the size of the house. All houses had a garden that was sufficiently large to grow a significant amount of food. Each plot could produce around two shillings’ worth of fruit and vegetables per week—worth roughly £375 a year today—increasing the value of the home to the tenant still further.