The January chocolate meet

The January meet of Starcross History munched its way through the generous free samples as they listened to Andrew Cadbury’s delicious talk about his family and the development of the chocolate industry.

The reason that so many UK businesses were started by Quakers was that universities would not accept Quakers. Quakers were unable to study for professions such as law and medicine. Bright youngsters from Quaker families had no alternative but to go into business. They started banks such as Barclays and Lloyds. They founded Huntley and Palmers Biscuits, Bryant and May matches, and Clark’s shoes. The Fry, Rowntree, Terry and Cadbury families became confectioners.

In 1824, John Cadbury opened a grocer’s shop in Bull St, Birmingham. With pestle and mortar, he produced drinking chocolate, which he saw as healthy, and much preferable to alcoholic drinks. As his chocolate product range expanded to include confectionary, Cadbury’s manufacturing moved to larger and larger factories.

  The Cadbury family believed that their loyal workforce deserved to enjoy a quality lifestyle. In 1879, they built a village and a factory near rural Selly Oak, where there was a trout stream called The Bourn. The “Bournville” workers’ houses had back-to-back gardens, separated by rows of fruit trees. Facilities included sports pitches with heated changing rooms. Swimming pools were built. Everyone was encouraged to learn to swim. Cheap train fares were negotiated for those who still lived in Birmingham. There were works outings and summer camps for the children. In the Victorian era remembered for industrial cruelty and deprivation, the Cadbury name became just as famed for its social benefits and advances in working conditions, as it was famed for its chocolate.

The recipe for Cadbury’s milk chocolate remains a secret. Cadbury’s chocolate today is manufactured worldwide, and the recipe varies in the different countries.

Cadbury is now owned by the US giant, Mondelez. The corners of the milk chocolate bars are rounded. There’s a new product which combines cheese’nchocolate - Cadbury  Philadelphia - . 

 Andrew showed us a book by his niece Deborah; Chocolate Wars

Deborah has written more historical books including  one with a picture of Brunel on the front cover

Chocolate Wars

Chocolate Wars: The 150-Year Rivalry Between the World's Greatest Chocolate Makers 

by Deborah Cadbury

This is the Amazon link to the book recommended at tonight's meet. If you'd like to buy it, please use this link because Starcross History can earn commission every time you buy from Amazon using a link on here

Cheers!

Meeting tonight 7:30pm in St Paul's Church

Meeting in St Paul's Church on January 13th

Poster for the meeting on Wednesday, January 13th

 at 7:30pm in St Paul's Curch, Starcross. Our speaker will be Andrew Cadbury who will talk about his family and the history of chocolate

Here's the link to this poster. Please can you print and display? Cheers

Because we don't want to exclude anyone from coming, we won't charge for admission, and we won't have a membership fee, but we need to cover the £20 cost to hire the rooms, and we also need money for our projects.
We raise money by asking you to bring a raffle prize - perhaps some of us might bring a chocolate raffle prize this time? We also sell tea&coffee withabiscuit, which costs £1, and we sell our hard enamel badges for £5. We also have some copies of the late Dick Forrester's book What was an Atmospheric Railway priced only £3 - they are advertised on eBay for twice that price!

We are always looking for speakers, and for help with running this group, and with our projects. The current projects are:

• Making a trail of peacocks' tails to commemorate Captain George Peacock. There will be a Dartmoor-style letterbox stamp sited near to each peacock tail. On St George's Day, 23rd April, we will sell you a trail card, and invite you to follow the trail and collect the stamps. There's a peacock's feather for the first 50 completed cards.

We are looking for a trophy or two to present to the best peacock tails - perhaps you may have an old trophy you no longer need? Or we could use a ceramic pot if it has two handles at the top.

• Recreating or locating the missing Stairs Cross. Read about this project on these links:

 The history of Stairs Cross
Starcross Parish Council backs the project if we can further prove the existence of a Stairs Cross
photograph of the stairs where the Stairs Cross was sited

We need someone to research the archives of Sherbourne Abbey. Perhaps we could raise enough money to fund a geophys exploration of the estuary, to see if the Stairs Cross lies buried underneath the silt. Maybe Henry V11th's men didn't destroy the cross, but merely tipped it into the estuary mud?

• Exploring archaeological remains. 

There's a wartime bunker around Warboro. Read about it on this link Operational Base of the Starcross Auxiliary Unit Patrol

ARCHI, the historical search hound, has  discovered 117 archaeological and historic sites within 10km of Starcross 117 archaeological sites near Starcross from ARCHIUK
Are there some enthusiasts to explore some of these sites.  Which site interests you the most?

• Commemorating Captain George Peacock. Captain Peacock invented the screw propeller... so let's have an enormous screw propeller with his name on it. Maybe site it on Parish Council land on The Strand?  We need researchers to discover more, and someone to contact Captain Peacock's descendants to tell them what we'd like to do. Then we'll need to approach the Parish Council with our ideas. 

HERE'S a link to some information about him from the Royal Museums at Greenwich. The links to the illustrations have been taken down, but they may be available elsewhere on the Royal Greenwich Museums' website
HERE'S another link. This is to the information on the National Archives website

Meet on January 13th: Cadbury's of Bournville in Starcross Church

Chocoholics will be very welcome at the next meet of Starcross History on Wednesday, January 13th, in our new venue: St Paul's Church. 

Our speaker will be Andrew Cadbury, and his subject will be Cadbury's of Bournville. We'll hear all about the history of his family, and the story of chocolate

The Church music group rehearses every Wednesday in the main Church, until 7:30. This means that the Church will be open, so we'll be able to go straight in to set up in the rooms at the back - no more waiting outside in the rain.