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Chocolate and Paradise: An Analyzation of George ’s Model Village LEWIS CLEGG

Cadbury chocolate is one of Britain’s most famous and popular treats. Besides the chocolate, the Cadbury family are famous for their development of Bournville, a model village on the outskirts of , . Bournville Works, the new Cadbury factory established in 1879, became surrounded by , entertainment, and transportation networks, establishing a new model village that was the Cadbury family’s response to the growing poverty rate in Victorian England.1 This is a great idea on the surface, especially in the heart of the Victorian era, however, there is more beyond this “accepted history” or narrative that Bournville was a model village for working-class Victorian England. There are many great elements of Bournville, but it is not as astonishing as it might seem once a thorough critique and examination is conducted. This is the aim of this paper. I seek to challenge many elements of the accepted history of Bournville and the notion that is was a remarkable model village. Bournville may have been marketed this way to counter the ills of overcrowded and unsanitary Victorian , but a critical examination highlights that it was a critique of working-class lifestyles, and one that George Cadbury believed could be reformed with social engineering based on Quaker ideals. This paper will explore the history of the Bournville village, while also critiquing some of the positive and negative elements of such a settlement. This paper also calls for further research on the topic. Firstly, John Cadbury’s growing business was taken over by his two sons, George and Richard in 1861, who needed a new desirable location to allow for further expansion. Since the company was reliant on the system for milk delivery and railways for the import of cocoa from major cities, a site with easy access to both of these modes of transportation was key. After scouting for locations, the brothers came across an open area four miles from Birmingham’s industrial centre. The brothers were enthralled with the location and moved their business here in 1879, with the opening of a new factory. The move was a risky business decision but provided many positive elements. Another major positive of the location was the development of the Birmingham West Suburban Railway, which was located close to a canal and connected this location to central Birmingham. The site was close to key transportation networks for imports, provided open space in case of future expansion, and was regarded as a much healthier and cleaner alternative to the polluted .2 This latter point was becoming more apparent in the later

1 Catherine Higgs, Chocolate Islands: Cocoa, Slavery, and Colonial Africa, (Athens: Ohio, University, Press, 2012): 2-3. 2 Nigel Dawkins, “History of Bournville,” September 26, 2015, Bournville Village Council, Retrieved from, http://bournvillevillagecouncil.org.uk/menu-pages/history-of-bournville.html, para. 3-4.

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Victorian era, as citizens were beginning to take notice of the dirty and overcrowded cities. There were often class connotations associated with these critiques however, with the working classes taking the brunt of the criticism. The cities had once been the promise of a better life in Britain and escape from the misery of rural lifestyles, with higher wages and an abundance of jobs during the expansion of industry in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.3 Now the opposing view was held by the Cadbury brothers, who felt the open and vast countryside could benefit the company economically and its workers. George and were correct in their gamble to move their business from Birmingham’s central industrial hub to the countryside, at least economically. Business began to increase, in large part due the railway network being able to transport in daily labour. The Cadbury brothers decided to make use of their fifteen-acre property and built sixteen semidetached homes to many of the 300 workers. There was also a football and cricket pitch provided, as well as a female playground. The facilities were very gendered and class structured however. Males were able to engage in their social spaces of “manly” sports like football and cricket quite openly. Meanwhile, the females were reserved to the private sphere, as cooking facilities were built. The only acceptable public space for females was their playground, which was a much smaller space and adjoined to the factory.4 In terms of class structure, these early were designed for senior foreman and their families. These middle-class families were able to live on sight and enjoy the healthy benefits and open fields of the countryside. Meanwhile, the rest of the employees had to commute from the overcrowded and unsanitary sections of Birmingham. To be fair to the Cadbury brothers though, they did negotiate cheap fares with the railway company to make it more affordable for their employees. Another issue arose though, when the railways did not run at convenient times. The factory had to open at six o’clock some days, which required employees to walk four miles from central Birmingham, before working a full day of physical labour, although in much better working conditions than before.5 The idea of Bournville as a model Victorian village had not been coined yet, and these gendered and class structured spaces were seen across most of Victorian Britain, so these developments were no different than other elements of the time. These further insights highlight that Bournville was a strong move economically, but problematic for the majority of the working-class employees and the concept of Bournville being an ideal model village in Victorian Britain. As business began to surge, the factory began to expand. The brothers were able to change the British chocolate market significantly with their brilliant innovations and manufacturing techniques. On George Cadbury’s travels to the Netherlands in the 1860’s, he came across a press machine that significantly reduced the high fat content of cocoa and made it more desirable to eat. He was able to negotiate a deal for this press and brought it back to Birmingham. The brothers used this tool to their advantage and focused more on marketing eatable chocolate. This was what

3 , 2010, “The Bournville Story,” Bournville Village Trust: 2. 4 Gordan E. Cherry, 1996, “Bournville, England: 1895-1995,” Journal of Urban History, no. 4: 494-495. 5 John R. Bryson and Philippa A. Lowe, 2002, “Regular Articles: Story-Telling and History : Rereading George Cadbury’s Bournville Model Village,” Journal of Historical Geography 28 (January): 27-28.

71 allowed their business to grow and expand to Bournville initially.6 The move allowed the company to produce more eatable chocolate and reach more British markets. Cocoa manufacturing became even more diversified, when the integration of milk led to an early form of Cadbury’s famous and widespread popular “dairy milk” bar in the twentieth century.7 Connecting back to Bournville, these successful business and manufacturing practices allowed the Cadbury company to hire more workers with the expansion of the factory. This is when George took the lead, with his idea of making Bournville a model village in 1893 and a way to counter the slums of inner Birmingham, characterized by overcrowded living conditions and poor sanitation. There was a major shortage of available housing within Birmingham and the prices were well out of the range of most working-class families. From the 1860’s onwards, measures were enacted to try and overcome some of the sanitary deficiencies in British cities with new public health regulations, but they were limited in action. George Cadbury marketed that his idea was great for “the community at large, not just for workers at his factory”.8 George wanted his workers to live in a welcoming community and one where they could engage with the outdoors and clean, healthy air. George founded the Bournville Estate and justified it with quite the marketable blurb, The Founder is desirous of alleviating the evils which arise from the insanitary and insufficient accommodation supplied to large numbers of the working classes, and of securing to workers in factories some of the advantages of outdoor village life, with opportunities for the natural healthful occupation of cultivating the soil. The object is declared to be the amelioration of the condition of the working-class and labouring population in and around Birmingham, and elsewhere in Great Britain, by the provision of improved dwellings, with gardens and open spaces to be enjoyed therewith.9 George marketed this community as an opportunity for a better life for residents of Birmingham. His marketing connects well to the growing ideas of health and the outdoors being a space for improving it. Life would become very structured in Bournville, despite the marketing of freedom of the outdoors and open space. George did have good intentions in these regards, made evident by his actions, and time spent examining the conditions of the working-class for decades. However, this village would not cure all the ills of Victorian society, and his ideas had a great deal of religious connotations behind them. Furthermore, the Cadburys were a very devoted Quaker family. This was exemplified by John Cadbury, as he proposed his drinking chocolate would be a viable substitute to alcohol, which in early Victorian society, was linked to many of the social ills.10 George Cadbury continued these ideas when he brought them to the forefront of his model village. George also presented the idea

6 John Bradley, Cadbury’s Purple Reign: The Story behind Chocolate’s Best-Loved Brand,” Chichester, England: Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley, 2008: 8-10. 7 Gordan E. Cherry, “Bournville, England: 1895-1995,” 495. 8 Ibid., 495-497. 9 George Cadbury, In “Bournville, 1895,” 1981, Architectural Design 51: 10. 10 Nigel Dawkins, “History of Bournville,” para. 1.

72 that he developed Bournville as a private, individual, and dedicated religious man with an understanding of the hardships of Victorian England, rather than an eager businessman, who developed the estates for his own economic benefit. This distinction removed Bournville and the idea of a model village from critiques of social control or engineering.11 However, upon greater critical analysis of Bournville, there are many elements of the construction of a Quaker-led community, best represented in the physical and social design of the village.12 This examination counters the idea of George Cadbury being the ideal generous religious man, who helped the working-class population and gave them greater freedom over their lives. George had good intentions, but there was a great deal of social engineering and physical space devoted to ideas from the Quaker religion and critique of working-class lives. In 1893, George bought 120 acres of land surrounding the factory to prevent it being surrounded by high-density housing. The land was bought privately by George and not in the company’s name, as touched on above. George hired fellow Quaker, Alfred Pickard Walker, to be his estate surveyor. Both had the idea of a assembled on many of the principles and ideas of Quakerism. were historically renowned for their proposals of “image-making, religious iconography and artistic display”.13 They felt that by advocating some of these ideas without explicitly stating their relation to Quakerism, it would attract many of the workers and close by residents to live in the estate. This was a critique of the working-class lifestyle as the lower classes of Victorian Britain had become closely associated with ills such as overcrowding, unsanitary lifestyles, poor health, and drunkenness. Instead of this lifestyle, Bournville offered working-class citizens a clean, healthy, and rural alternative. George Cadbury and Walker undertook this project “to make it easy for working men to own houses with large gardens secure from the danger of being spoilt either by the building of factories or by interference with the enjoyment of sun, light, and air, [and] the speculator will not find a footing”.14 This may sound like a great idea in theory, and certainly was in many regards, however, by the way Cadbury and Walker frame their desire to embark on the estate, it becomes a critique of working-class lifestyles and living conditions. There is also their belief in Quaker ideals being superior and a need for the residents of Bournville to adopt them, despite not being explicitly stated in any marketing. Between 1896 and 1903 too, Cadbury placed 138 houses on 999-year leases. He felt by placing long leases on the properties, he would be able to maintain the rural appearance of the area and the comfort of residents would be reassured. Cadbury would be left in control over the appearance of the estates and this action is very much an example of social control over Bournville’s residents, as it idealizes a certain way of life.15 Around the same time that Bournville’s estates were being constructed in the 1890’s, there was an Arts and Crafts movement within Birmingham. George Cadbury was an active participant

11 “Regular Articles: Story-Telling and History Construction: Rereading George Cadbury’s Bournville Model Village,” 25. 12 Adrian R. Bailey and John R. Bryson, 2006, “A Quaker Experiment in Town Planning: George Cadbury and the Construction of Bournville Model Village,” Quaker Studies (Quaker Studies Research Association) 11 (1): 90. 13 Ibid., 94. 14 Ibid., 93. 15 Ibid., 93.

73 in this movement as it connected to his Quaker belief of image-making and “sacred” body representation, as well as his company’s marketing of Cadbury chocolate being developed upon purity and quality.16 The movement was characterized by presenting an image to the Victorian public of a romanticized version of pre-industrial life. There was also the hope that Britain would one day move past this factory driven society to a “bucolic utopia”.17 Since George Cadbury was a major participant of this Arts and Crafts movement, Bournville became his major contribution. The Bournville estate became a form of public art, uniting George’s business and religious interests into a symbolic, but very idealized, image of a utopian future.18 The of Bournville Estate was designed by a young and relative unknown architect in William Alexander Harvey, who Cadbury admired for his commitment to simplistic designs and avoidance of publicity. The “Bournville design” was very simplistic and plain looking, but one of the most important features was the estates be of low-density. This was important to Cadbury for a couple of reasons. The first was he believed it connected to the spiritual well-being of workers as living in a home that was their own and with a simplistic design would be key for their morale and happiness, compared to the crowded and unsanitary conditions of urban centres. The second factor was connected to economics as Cadbury wanted to prove to critics that building simplistic, but well-designed, low-density homes could be profitable.19 This would end up being the case, as in 1907, the Devon and Exeter Daily Gazette reported that “a report having been circulated that Mr. George Cadbury makes a handsome income from the model village at Bournville, and that when the leases…his descendants will become multi-millionaires”. 20 Cadbury challenged this report publicly however, claiming that he had “given the estate to the nation” and that the Trust he left the estates to receive all the profits.21 It is difficult to assess what claim is true without further evidence, but based on Cadbury’s initial desire to prove that the Bournville estates could be profitable, makes it likely that he continued to want a profit to come of these estates. Both of the factors pertaining to low-density housing highlight that the design and architecture of the Bournville estates were tied to economics and social engineering, primarily based on Cadbury’s Quaker beliefs. Cadbury wanted to ensure that his housing projects were profitable, despite not being in his company’s name. He also wanted to ensure the happiness of the working-class residents and felt the best way for this to occur was by providing a simplistic design and low-resident housing, which stem from Quakerism. This highlights that Cadbury felt the lifestyle of the working-class was in need of reform and their happiness could be found through social engineering and the opportunities his model village provided. Moreover, another connection of Bournville to Quakerism was in its social composition. George Cadbury wrote in a private letter to Walker in 1894 that he intended for the model village to reflect a Quaker religious practice in its social composition:

16 Adrian R. Bailey and John R. Bryson, “A Quaker Experiment in Town Planning,” 94-96. 17 Ibid. 18 Ibid. 19 Ibid., 96-99. 20 “Mr. Cadbury and the Bournville Estate,” Devon and Exeter Daily Gazette (Exeter, England), March 26, 1907, p. 7. 21 Ibid.

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Please let me know whether you would be likely to be able to give up some years to carrying out a scheme I have in hand for laying out 120 acres in the neighbour- hood of our works for cottages, each surrounded by their own garden, not more than six to the acre. I would not care for anyone to undertake it who did not enter into the spirit of the undertaking as a labour to the Lord... I am rather hopeful that this will be to a large extent a Quaker colony.22 This private letter provides further evidence that George Cadbury intended for his Bournville estate to be heavily influenced by his Quaker beliefs and would social engineer it to steer it this way. Quakers also abstained from alcohol. This had been notable with John Cadbury and his marketing of cocoa being a healthy alternative to the social ills associated with alcohol. George inherited this same notion from his father as he supported this belief greatly, initially exemplified by his strong support of the temperance movement in Britain. These beliefs translated into the design of Bournville, as there were no pubs on the premise. George had hoped that the workers would prefer gardening to drinking in their free time. The absence of a pub in Bournville proposes paternalism. The company tried their best to avoid this label though. They did this by providing benefits such as a minimum wage, sick leaves, and pension plan. Trade unions were established too, and concerns were taken very seriously.23 Again these actions were ground-breaking for the late Victorian era, and prove George Cadbury had good intentions with Bournville. However, when critical analysis of Bournville and the intentions behind the model village are undertaken, other motives come to the limelight, and it seems that Cadbury was using some of these positive benefits to hide some of his true intentions. Another element of paternalism in Bournville was through the village being a part of the . The garden city movement emerged in the late 1890’s and was designed to incorporate the advantages of both town and country. Garden cities were planned to be medium-sized towns on larger estates and surrounded by a greenbelt, residences, agriculture, and industry.24 The Bournville estate was under construction during this time of social and environmental concern sweeping across Britain. Cadbury engaged in this movement for multiple purposes. The first was publicity for both the estate, but also the Cadbury company and its products. The second purpose was to raise George Cadbury’s own personal image. He wanted to publicize his philosophy of the benefits of rural life and the positives of outdoor activities. Lastly, the garden movement would help push the administrative burden off of Cadbury. Cadbury eventually wanted to pass along the estate over to a trust fund, as his company and estates continued to grow.25 This would give Cadbury the opportunity to live a quieter life with continued financial gains and a positive legacy of a successful company and iconic model-village of Victorian England. This would reign true in 1900, when the Bournville Village Trust was founded by George. The trust was set

22 George Cadbury to A.P. Walker, 1894, In Bailey, Adrian R., and John R. Bryson, 2006, “A Quaker Experiment in Town Planning: George Cadbury and the Construction of Bournville Model Village,” Quaker Studies (Quaker Studies Research Association) 11 (1): 99. 23 Catherine Higgs, Chocolate Islands: Cocoa, Slavery, and Colonial Africa, 2-4. 24 John R. Bryson and Philippa A. Lowe, “Regular Articles,” 36. 25 John R. Bryson and Philippa A. Lowe, “Regular Articles,” 36-37.

75 up as a charitable organization, whose responsibilities included ensuring the continuation of the planned development, maintenance of the village, and preserving it for future generations.26 George Cadbury propagated the legacy of Bournville and the garden city movement substantially in September 1901, when the first Garden City Association conference was held in the village. The objective of this conference was framed, “to consider the experiment of Mr. George Cadbury in removing his works from Birmingham to Bournville; the difficulties which attend the removal of works from large cities to new districts [and] how local authorities and other organizations can co-operate with such movements”. 27 This conference was attended by over 300 delegates from different unions, councils, and social societies from across the nation. Even though the conference was framed as a way to highlight the positives of the garden city movement and benefits of rural life, behind the scenes it celebrated George Cadbury and his legacy of creating a model village. The garden movement itself was another way to structure the lifestyle of Bournville and socially engineer its residents. The ideas of health, the outdoors, and gardens were all entrenched in the development of Bournville years before the garden movement. However, now there was an opportunity to apply these ideas to a national movement and also broadcast Bournville as a leading community in this development, as Cadbury had been advocating similar ideas and architectural developments for years prior. Furthermore, Bournville portrayed the Victorian obsessions and ideas of health and the outdoor through its development practices and recreational spaces. As discussed above, when Bournville was first established, there were recreational spaces and sports designated for the male foreman, and a small playground adjoined to the factory for the females to engage in social and physical activity. A roving correspondent from the Leicester Chronicle and Leicestershire Mercury embarked on a tour of Cadbury’s premises in 1884 and documented: A cricket and football ground is provided for the men; and for the young women and girls a spacious playground fitted with swings and other contrivances contributory to outdoor enjoyment. These privileges are thoroughly appreciated, and the joyous indications of innocent pleasure emanates from ‘haunts of leisure’…were refreshing to the ears of a sojourner in cities like myself, for it was delightful to hear the cheery shouts of the men at play, and the merry laughter of the girls.28 This excerpt is a very idealized vision of Bournville being a perfect model village, however, it does provide insight into recreational spaces being crafted in order for physical activity and social engagement to take place. The excerpt also provides further evidence of gendered spaces, as men played cricket and football, while cheering and shouting, and women laughed merrily in their playground of swings and other exotic sounding contrivances. The women’s physical activity is portrayed as more social in nature and more relaxed than the shouting and cheering of manly sports. This is a very glorified portrayal of the women’s space too, as it was adjoined the factory

26 Bournville Village Trust, 2010, “The Bournville Story,” 1. 27 John R. Bryson and Philippa A. Lowe, “Regular Articles,” 37. 28 “Bournville, The ‘Cocoa’ Town,” Leicester Chronicle and the Leicestershire Mercury (Leicester, England), March 29, 1884, p. 7.

76 and was not as grand as the male “physical” spaces. There is also an omission of the participants in these spaces being of middle-class origin, which could explain why they appreciate these facilities so much and enjoy them in such innocent pleasure. Sports continued to be a major aspect of physical activity and improving the health of working-class citizens with the expansion of the Bournville estates in the 1890’s. George Cadbury had been an active individual and lover of sports his entire life. This love of sports connected to his Quaker beliefs too. He loved the games for themselves, but “more as a physical training necessary to keep one fit for the real business of life”. 29 This idea was important to the design of Bournville as physical activity became a means to improve health and morality of Bournville’s residents. This did not necessarily have to be through sports specifically as Cadbury was a “lifelong devotee of outdoor pursuits like walking, cycling, and riding.” 30 These were common activities Cadbury believed people should engage in, and designed Bournville with plenty of garden space and walkways to encourage these actions. These activities apparently helped the Cadbury brothers focus on getting their business in order and staying true to their faith when they inherited their father’s business in 1861. According to George’s biographer, “Tobacco and alcohol he [George] never took, but he added to his abstinences at this time every form of stimulant, even tea and coffee,” in large part due to his love of physical activity and love of sports, such as cricket and boating.31 The claim is that physical activity allowed the Cadbury brothers to remain true to their morals, resist the tempting stimulants, and stay focused on achieving success with their family business. The Cadbury brothers are a notable example of success then by living a life full of physical activity. Other working-class citizens could too, in Bournville, if they adopted the same lifestyle as the Cadbury brothers. Again, there was deeper lying meanings beyond these activities. The idea that these activities would improve the health and morality of working-class employees and residents is another example of Cadbury critiquing the stereotypical lifestyle of working-class British citizens of the Victorian era. The social engineering of trying to change their lifestyle through physical activity connects to Cadbury’s belief in wanting a village based on Quaker ideals. Again though, he never admitted this publicly or marketed it this way, but based on critical analysis of many of the features of the village and private letters, engineering Bournville into a model society based on Quaker ideals was a major goal of Cadbury. Advocating these ideas and activities in Bournville was one thing, but implementing them was another challenge. In addition to engaging in the garden city movement and designing the landscape to encourage physical activity, other considerations were implemented by the brothers. One way of encouraging sports was by changing the factory hours. For example, the factory was shut down mid-day every Saturday, with an afternoon of sports encouraged. They were one of the first factories to adopt this concept, as traditionally, factories were open twelve hours a day, six days a week. New tenants at Bournville were given a book entitled Rules of Health. Within the book, advice was given such as “take walking or other exercise in the open air for at least half an hour

29 John Bromhead, 2000, “George Cadbury’s Contribution to Sport,” Sports Historian 20 (1): 97. 30 Ibid., 97. 31 Ibid., 98.

77 daily.” 32 Gymnasiums were also built to help with eye and hand coordination, build up strength, and reduce the risk of diseases such as hernias. Many men were trained in weightlifting, and as gains in rapidity were made, a prevention of illness would increase. This was one way to help develop a certain physique and reduce the risk of the disease that the working-class citizens were supposedly more vulnerable to. All males under sixteen were required to spend at least two and a half hours at the gymnasium per week, with the hope a healthy lifestyle would be started early in life.33 An open-aired pool was opened in 1898 and even included covered dressing rooms. There were also countless other facilities developed such as bowling greens, fishing pools, swimming baths, and tennis courts. There are countless other examples of gendered experiences too, as female athletic clubs, female hours, and female sports such as gymnastics and dancing were emphasized. This is not necessarily a bad thing, as Cadbury “extended the whole concept of sporting provision by making it available to both sexes”. 34 However, the activities and spaces that were open to women were very typical of what women were expected to engage in and socially acceptable to in Victorian England. Overall, George Cadbury provided many great opportunities for the working- class citizens of Bournville to engage in physical and social activities and live a much healthier lifestyle, but they were very gendered and a critique of the lifestyle and health of working-class populations of Victorian England. Finally, the question arises then, was Bournville really a model village for Victorian England, or is this notion too good to be true? The general accepted history is that the Cadburys created a model town, equipped with adequate housing, outdoor spaces, and progressive living and working conditions.35 This is certainly true to an extent, but the aim of this paper was to critique this notion, and this “accepted history” is not as thorough as it seems. There is an underlying theme of criticism towards working-class lifestyles and the need for reform. The Cadburys were a very devoted religious family, with Quakerism in their case, both exemplified with George and his father. Private letters and the architectural layout of Bournville provide evidence that George wanted his village to be based on many principles of Quakerism and hoped the working-class residents would conform to these ideals. This involved notions of physical activity, low-residential housing, and healthy and clean lifestyles. There were many gendered and class connotations related to these ideas as well, demonstrated by the physical layout of physical spaces and activities advocated. There were also economic ties and personal image connotations related to Bournville. George Cadbury made sure to purchase the Bournville estates and surrounding land in 1893 as a private religious citizen rather than a businessman. George also wanted the estates to be economically viable, as well as ensure it allowed him to publicly present himself as a model Quaker who provided an alternative lifestyle for working-class Britons than the overcrowded and unsanitary conditions of the industrial cities. Bournville, England certainly contained many great opportunities for working-class citizens and George Cadbury did have good

32 John Bromhead, 2000, “George Cadbury’s Contribution to Sport,” 101. 33 Ibid., 102-103. 34 Ibid., 103-104. 35 Sophie D. Coe and Michael D. Coe, The True History of Chocolate 2nd ed., (London: Thames and Hudson, 2007): 243.

78 intentions. However, upon further critical analysis, the accepted history of the site needs to be reconsidered and the village may not be as great as it seems on the surface. Some scholars are beginning to take note of this, but it will need to be challenged further in future studies.