George Cadbury

George Cadbury (born Sept. 19, 1839, Birmingham, Warwickshire, Eng.—died Oct. 24, 1922, Birmingham) was an English businessman and social reformer who, with his elder brother, Richard, took over their father’s failing enterprise (April 1861) and built it into the highly prosperous Cadbury Brothers cocoa- and chocolate-manufacturing firm. George was perhaps more important for his improvements in working conditions and for his successful experiments in housing and town planning.

In 1879 the Cadburys moved their business 4 miles (6.4 km) from industrial Birmingham to a rural site they called Bournville (then in Worcestershire, but now part of Birmingham). There they introduced a private social security program and improved working conditions much in advance of their time. In 1893 George Cadbury (who became chairman of the firm on Richard’s death in 1899), bought 120 acres (50 hectares) nearby. His long experience as a teacher in a Birmingham “adult school” for workingmen had convinced him that bad housing was the cause of many social evils. From 1894 he and his architect, W. Alexander Harvey, built working-class dwellings unusual for their ample gardens and other amenities. By 1900, when Cadbury renounced his proprietorship of the estate and set up the Bournville Village Trust, there were 313 houses for various social classes; by 1960 the trust held 1,000 acres with 3,500 houses. Economically self-sustaining, Bournville is not a company town, being independent of the factory and open to residents other than Cadbury employees. It has been a model for other “garden cities” and “garden suburbs.”

George Cadbury was an enthusiast for Quaker (Society of Friends) evangelism. Beginning in 1901 he or his family, wishing to express Liberal Party views, acquired the London Daily News (afterward the News Chronicle) and other newspapers.