Chocolate Wars: The 150-Year Rivalry Between the World's Greatest Chocolate Makers (26 page)

George wanted the village to grow while maintaining its quality. Once repairs and maintenance were carried out, the trustees were to use any extra rental income to buy land and build more homes, applying the same generous ratios of parkland and gardens to buildings. He wanted to prove that the scheme was economically viable so that other philanthropists or investors could see its benefits and follow suit. If investors could make a return on quality housing for tenants of varying backgrounds without resorting to building a slum, they might be inspired to copy it. In this way Bournville could influence society at large.

The experiment at Bournville was part of a wider debate concerning the problems of inner cities. In 1898 a parliamentary shorthand writer, Ebenezer Howard, had published
Tomorrow: A Peaceful Path to Real Reform
, which set out a grand scheme for a revolution in town planning. Howard was concerned by the waves of people moving from the country into the towns; London had almost doubled in size between 1870 and 1900 from a population of 3.9 million to 6.6
million. This brought all the familiar problems of urban poverty. Howard believed the solution lay in a futuristic scheme in which “Town and country
must be married
.” He toured Bournville and believed the garden city idea could be developed to provide an entire social and economic system with the potential to tackle key problems of Victorian capitalism.

Howard’s idealistic scheme saw large areas of land converted to clusters of garden cities. Each garden city of approximately 32,000 people would be geometrically arranged around green belts separating it from the next garden city. Unlike Bournville, Howard’s garden city was arranged on a circular design with boulevards and avenues surrounding a central park. The compact design gave it a human scale and put most essentials within walking distance of the residents. He thought of every need, even foreshadowing today’s shopping malls with elegant glass arcades in each town called a “Crystal Palace.” An idealist to the last, Howard hoped that workers would unite to create the vision, “for the vastness of the task which seems to frighten some . . . represents in fact the very measure of its value to the community.” He was so fervent in his beliefs that he launched the Garden City Association in 1899 to turn belief into practice.

George Cadbury supported Howard’s vision because it coincided with his own ideas on land use. He believed that injustices in the ownership of land “lay at the root of many social evils.” If the estimated 9 million households in England were housed in cottages at ten to the acre, he reasoned, they would occupy a mere 900,000 acres of the 77 million acres in Britain. Since tests at Bournville showed that one acre of cottage gardens yielded twelve times more produce than one acre of pasture, it was a much more effective way of meeting the nation’s food needs. A massive increase in death duties was needed, he thought, so that it would no longer be possible for most of Britain’s land to accumulate in just a few hands. Bournville proved that land was more effectively cultivated “in the hands of the people themselves.”

As for the difficult decision to disinherit his own children—the reasoning behind it was set out six years later in an interview that
George Cadbury gave to a committee of the Canterbury Convocation investigating social problems, including the accumulation of wealth. At the heart of it, he explained, was his unwavering faith.

George believed that “every man must give an account of himself to God.” According to Matthew 19:24, “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God.” The camel, it is said, had to stoop to go through the Needle’s Eye gate into Jerusalem; a rich man can enter if he will humble himself before God. For George Cadbury, it was simply wrong that a lucky few “have a superabundance of wealth . . . and every conceivable comfort and luxury” while countless others in “so-called Christian lands . . . lack things which are essential to health and morality.” He felt, moreover, that great wealth was of questionable value. “I have seen many families ruined by it, morally and spiritually,” he told the committee. And while money brought no lasting happiness to the rich, it “certainly brought a vast amount of misery upon those who did not have their share.”

George and Elsie wanted to contribute more of their personal wealth to develop the community at Bournville. Over the years several handsome public buildings were built around the village green. The first was a meeting place known as Ruskin Hall, which eventually became the Bournville School of Arts and Crafts. It provided professional qualifications such as teacher training as well as many craft skills like dressmaking and metal work. George and his wife also paid for the Bournville Schools. Happy afternoons were spent together perfecting the designs that equipped each school with a modern library, scientific laboratory, and extensive playgrounds. And of course it all had to be in a beautiful setting, something immemorial that evoked a continental style and possessed classical beauty. When staying in Bruges, Belgium, George and Elsie were enchanted by the sound of the cathedral’s bells, and they arranged to make an exact copy of the Bruges bells for Bournville. It was a great day when all twenty-two bells were hoisted into position below the domed cupola in the tower of the Infant School, the carillon ringing out around the village green.

The Cadbury brothers had initiated a great many schemes targeted at improving the health and well-being of their staff, and George was dedicated to developing them further. A job at the chocolate factory was not for the physically faint hearted. The men’s sports grounds now reached to twelve acres, and there were Bournville teams for every conceivable sport. In the summer months, the outdoor pool for men was popular, and in 1905 an imposing indoor pool was completed for women, and thousands of staff learned to swim. The women also had twelve acres of grounds for sport. Fitness training was compulsory for anyone under eighteen; an hour a week was set aside in the work schedules. Village events were organized on the green, including a maypole for children’s dancing in spring, folk dancing, Morris dancing, country dancing, and a youth club.

Should anyone fall ill, a doctor was hired in 1902 for the staff. The medical department expanded over time to include four nurses and a dentist, who were available to all employees free of charge. Free vitamin supplements were provided for those lacking stamina, and a convalescent home in the Herefordshire countryside was built for staff in need of a rest. These amenities may seem quaintly paternalistic by modern standards, but at a time when employees could be subjected to unhealthy or even dangerous working environments, it is small wonder that workers were queuing up to join Bournville. By the turn of the twentieth century, George Cadbury took a further step and asked his son Edward and nephew Barrow to look into creating a pension scheme.

There were the spiritual needs of his community to consider as well. George believed it was not possible to grow morally or spiritually in a slum. Only in the open spaces of the country was it possible for a man to come into touch with nature, “and thus know more of nature’s God.” At Bournville, apart from the Friends Meeting House, a site was found for an Anglican church, a village hall, and vicarage. George welcomed meetings of different faiths. He was a friend of William Booth, a Methodist, who had founded the Salvation Army in 1865, and he valued Booth’s message of a “practical religion” encouraging members to work in the slums. George believed all churches should unite to tackle
issues such as helping the poor and created a central library so ministers and preachers could share works from different faiths.

George and Elsie’s efforts to help the underprivileged began to show tangible results. In 1919 studies were carried out that compared children ages six to twelve who had been brought up in the poor Floodgate Street area of Birmingham with children of the same ages who grew up in Bournville. The children in Bournville grew on average two to three inches taller and were eight pounds heavier than their counterparts from the poorer districts of Birmingham. Infant mortality in Birmingham was 101 per 1,000 births, twice as high as the rate in Bournville.

Above all George wanted to use Bournville to improve the lives of children from Birmingham’s slums. This may well have been due to the enduring influence of his mother, Candia, who in her temperance visits to the poor districts in Birmingham was concerned for the innocent young victims caught in the cycle of deprivation. George revisited those same dirt-encrusted, teeming inner cities, where a dozen families might occupy one house, and practical as ever, wanted to give the children space. In his ideal world, no child would be brought up where a rose could not grow. He arranged to buy sites from the Birmingham City Council and turned them into playgrounds, hoping that other wealthy families in Birmingham would follow suit. Ideally, he argued, there should be a playground every four hundred yards, so that children throughout the city had daily access to spaces where they could play and grow more healthy.

To improve children’s health, George and Elsie created The Beeches in Bournville. This large house and grounds were used as an invalid home in the winter, but in the spring, the Beeches was turned into a summer camp where children could enjoy a two-week holiday from the industrial slums. Under the jurisdiction of the endlessly capable Mr. and Mrs. Cole, thirty stayed at a time. They could eat as much as they wanted, sleep in clean beds, and roam the garden and surrounding fields all day. According to contemporary reports, the children enjoyed their stay so much it was not unusual for them to be “unaccountably missing” on departure day. Eventually they were
found hiding under beds or in cupboards when it was time to go. Ever keen to document the benefits so other benefactors would follow suit, children were weighed on arrival and departure and found to be two to three pounds heavier after their visit.

No doubt inspired by his father’s campaign to help the chimney sweep boys, some of whom were badly maimed, George Cadbury had another scheme in mind for children who were unable to play. He knew that many of the cripples on the streets were the luckless “victim of cruel circumstances or ignorant chance,” and especially tragic were those harmed by “the carelessness of their own drunken parents.” George bought a grand house known as Woodlands, which was set on six acres of parkland just across the road from the manor house. It was adapted to cater to the special needs of crippled children.

George Cadbury enjoyed making the rounds of these charities. He liked to visit the Barn when a party was in progress. According to his biographer, Alfred Gardiner, he also visited the handicapped children at Woodlands each week, a “large box of chocolates tucked under his arm.” Invariably his entrance was greeted “by loud shouts of the children.” After chatting with the children downstairs who were recovering their mobility, he would go upstairs to see the children with more seriously injuries whose chances in life were limited. He visited every child handing out gifts, and he hired a surgeon to investigate if anything more could be done for them.

George Cadbury’s religious convictions shaped his world. It unified every aspect of his life and gave purpose and energy to his philanthropy.

Walking around Bournville, George could see the results of his endeavor: houses and public buildings where there had once been muddy fields. The improbable dream that he and his brother shared had been turned into solid bricks and mortar, into something powerful for good. And it was all from chocolate. Chocolate, or rather the humble cocoa bean, had created a little Eden. He hoped the success of his charities and trusts would inspire others. “Example is better than precept,” he said. “If you can show that your life is happier by giving” than by hoarding, “you will do more good than by preaching
about it.” So it was with great pleasure that he was approached in 1900 by Joseph Rowntree when he too wanted to create a model village.

I
n York, Joseph Rowntree, like George Cadbury, found it liberating to delegate part of the business to the younger generation. He had an all-consuming interest in tackling the problems of poverty, a passion shared by his son, Seebohm. Both Joseph and Seebohm had been much moved by a powerful series of books called
Life and Labour of the People in London
, which were written by Charles Booth in the 1890s. Booth popularized the idea of a “poverty line”—a minimum weekly sum that was needed to keep a man and his family at a basic level to maintain health. His study highlighted the levels of squalor and degradation that London’s poor endured, and he argued that the state had the means to help them. Seebohm was interested in applying a dispassionate scientific analysis to try to understand the causes of poverty. Despite his duties at the chocolate works, he found time to embark on a groundbreaking study.

Seebohm chose York as a representative provincial town and set out to gather data on 11,560 families on 388 streets—two-thirds of the town’s inhabitants, including, he said, “the whole of the working class population of the city.” He and his investigators undertook sensitive inquiries house to house, questioning people on their rent, income, number of occupants, number of rooms, access to a water tap, diet, and other personal information.