John Cadbury (12 August 1801 – 11 May 1889) was an English Quaker and businessman, who founded the Cadbury chocolate company in Birmingham, England. He was also involved in activism and philanthropy, championing workers' rights, environmental and industrial reform, temperance, animal welfare, education, and healthcare, while actively opposing cruelty, exploitation, and indulgent practices.
Biography
Early life and education
John Cadbury was born on 12 August 1801 in Birmingham to Richard Tapper Cadbury, a linen draper, and his wife Elizabeth Head Cadbury.
He was from a wealthy
Quaker family that moved to the area from the west of England. Cadbury attended
Joseph Crosfield's Quaker School at
Hartshill,
Warwickshire.
Quakerism
Cadbury was deeply involved in the Birmingham Friends Meeting, where he served as an elder for many years. At the age of 29, he was appointed clerk of the Warwickshire North Friends Monthly Meeting, and a year later, he took on the role of Overseer. He was the inaugural president of the Friends' Reading Society and actively supported the Seven Street Friday-day Schools.
Cadbury also made multiple missionary trips to Ireland on behalf of the Quakers.
Founding Cadbury
As was customary for Quakers in the early 19th century, Cadbury did not enter a university or pursue a military career, turning his energies toward business instead. He was first apprenticed to a tea dealer in
Leeds in 1818.
In 1824, Cadbury opened a shop at 93 Bull Street, Birmingham, selling cocoa and drinking chocolate that he prepared himself, along with tea, coffee, hops, and mustard.
He eventually decided to start commercial manufacture, opening a warehouse in Crooked Lane in 1831. In 1842, he was selling sixteen varieties of drinking chocolate and eleven varieties of cocoa.
In 1846, Cadbury entered into a partnership with his brother Benjamin, establishing Cadbury Brothers. The company moved to a new factory in Bridge Street in 1847.
Activism and philanthropy
Between 1830 and 1841, Cadbury served as a
Poor Law guardian, where he vocally opposed the exploitation of
Climbing boy and criticised the indulgent feasting practices of local poor law officials. A passionate advocate for environmental reform, he set an example by reducing pollution in his own factory and played a significant role in securing legislation to address industrial pollution.
Cadbury opposed animal cruelty including bull-baiting and was a supporter of the Animals' Friend Society.[ ][ ] He was also a supporter of the Peace Society and an advocate for .
Cadbury was an abstainer and active in the temperance movement.[ ] He saw drinking chocolate as an alternative for alcoholic beverages.
Later in life, Cadbury devoted himself to philanthropy, championing the development of hospitals, savings banks, and facilities for the blind.
Personal life and death
Cadbury married twice. He married Priscilla Ann Dymond (1799–1828), in 1826, but she died two years later. In Lancaster on 24 July 1832 he married his second wife, Candia Barrow (Lancaster, 1805–1855), daughter of George Barrow and wife Elizabeth Pumphrey,
[ The Annual Monitor For 1856, Obituary of the Members of the Society of Friends in Great Britain and Ireland For the Year 1855. London: Cash, 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).
Cadbury died at his home in Edgbaston, on 11 May 1889. He was buried at Witton Cemetery, Birmingham.
Legacy
During his lifetime, Cadbury dreamed of creating a
model village.
In 1879, Richard and George relocated the Cadbury factory from the centre of town to an area of what was then north
Worcestershire, on the borders of the parishes of Northfield and King's Norton centred on the 18th-century Bournbrook Hall, where they developed the model village of
Bournville; now a major suburb of Birmingham.
In accordance with Cadbury's teetotal heritage,
External links
