[BITList] Chocolate and charity

[John Feltham]

Wow! Check out his will at the end - and thats 1913 Pounds!


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Fry,  Joseph Storrs  (1826-1913), cocoa and chocolate manufacturer, was born in Union Street, Bristol, on 6 August 1826, the eldest son of Joseph Fry (1795-1879), cocoa and chocolate manufacturer, and his wife, Mary Ann, daughter of Edward Swaine. Initially educated at home, he went to Bristol College in 1841 for a year and, in order to learn the principles of commercial management, he joined a firm of accountants, entering J. S. Fry & Sons in 1846.

The family business had been founded by his great-grandfather, Joseph Fry  (1728-1787), an apothecary who had acquired the firm of Churchman's of Bristol, well known for a finer grade of chocolate produced by its water-powered machinery. The first Joseph Fry, an able and creative entrepreneur, established a number of successful businesses, including printing, pottery, and soap enterprises, and in 1777, with agents throughout the country, he moved his chocolate works from Newgate Street to Union Street, Bristol. When he died in 1787, the business was run by his wife, Anna (1719/20-1803), with their son, Joseph Storrs Fry (1769-1835), assuming control in 1795. He introduced a number of improvements to the production and roasting processes, including the installation of a Watt steam engine, and in 1822 he made his sons, Richard, Francis Fry  (1803-1886), and Joseph Fry, business partners, formally establishing J. S. Fry & Sons. In the following year, the firm accounted for 33 per cent of all British cocoa imports and, under the supervision of the first Joseph Storrs Fry, it emerged as the industry's leading business. He remained in control until his death in 1835, and it was his sons, including the father of the second Joseph Storrs, who responded to changes in Victorian consumer demand and diversified the product range.

In 1850 the firm first made eating chocolates, chocolate at that time being largely consumed as a drink rather than a solid confection. It began producing chocolate creams five years later and in 1866 it manufactured both its famous cream bar and its first pure cocoa powder, called Cocoa Essence. Joseph Fry retired in 1867, aged seventy-two, and his brothers Francis and Richard gradually relinquished management of the business, although Joseph Storrs and his cousin Francis James did not achieve formal control until 1886.

Joseph Storrs Fry inherited Britain's most successful chocolate firm, but his business had to face new competition, first Cadbury from the 1860s, and later Rowntree and Swiss companies such as Nestle from the 1890s. As demand for cocoa essence continued to expand, he launched Fry's Concentrated Cocoa in 1883, and, unlike its predecessors, it competed successfully against rival brands. The firm benefited from the overall, long-term increase in demand for cocoa, chocolate, and confectionery. A total of 250 employees in 1869 grew to 4500 by January 1896, when the firm was transformed into a limited company with authorized capital of £1 million. Fry was appointed its first chairman and, by 1907, J. S. Fry & Sons Ltd was Britain's fifty-first largest manufacturing employer. Sales expanded from almost £150,000 in 1870 to £1.86 million in 1913, the year of his death.

Fry's business career was hardly, however, an example of vigorous leadership building upon a substantial legacy, for the company's sales were outstripped by those of Cadbury. Management at the firm was a weakness, and much of the blame must be carried by Fry himself. His brothers demonstrated little interest in cocoa and chocolate manufacture: his brother Sir Edward Fry became a lord justice of appeal, and Lewis was the Liberal, and later Liberal Unionist, MP for Bristol. Both of them were eventually members of the privy council. In addition, J. S. Fry & Sons Ltd did not match the product innovations of rivals Cadbury and Rowntree, nor did it follow their respective examples of advanced factory organization at Bournville and York. Instead of developing a new site near Bristol, the company continued to operate in the cramped conditions of Union Street and by 1907 it was operating from no fewer than eight factories within the city.

Fry was known to be devout, gentle, reflective, kindly, and reserved, and in avoiding recreation, social contact, and marriage, he led an uneventful personal life. He was dedicated to his charitable works and to the Society of Friends and, although his brothers became very worldly Quakers, he remained plain in his devotions. Fry was a leading figure at the meeting-house at Friars, Bristol, and, as a supporter of Sunday schools, he was prominent in founding the Friends First Day Sunday Association in 1847, serving as secretary of its Bristol committee for forty years. As clerk to the London yearly meeting of the Society of Friends in 1870-75 and 1881-9, he was its leading official for a total of thirteen years. He joined the committee of the Bristol General Hospital in 1887, and became its chairman and treasurer in 1892 and its president in 1908. Until the last few years of his life, he visited every patient at the hospital on Christmas eve. He was also president of the Bristol YMCA in 1877.

Through his charitable donations and by his willingness to chair meetings, Fry was an active temperance supporter, an opponent of the opium trade and vivisection, and politically a Liberal and a believer in free trade. He employed a team of clerks to oversee his charities, and the strength of his religious convictions and charitable instincts led to paternalistic policies towards his workforce. He established the practice of a daily service in the workplace in 1854 and, until the 1890s, the partners personally interviewed all job applicants. He was generous in his charitable assistance to the workforce, but, in a reflection of general management at J. S. Fry & Sons Ltd, his beneficence was never organized through systematic welfare schemes, and cramped work conditions compared unfavourably with the staff facilities and factory gardens of Bournville and York. Unlike his contemporaries George Cadbury and Joseph Rowntree, he did not establish trusts which could continue his Quaker service to the community after his death.

In 1909, Fry was made an honorary freeman of Bristol and in 1912 he and his two brothers received honorary doctorates in law from the University of Bristol. As the first chairman of Victorian Britain's biggest cocoa and chocolate manufacturer he was a noted figure, but his talents and achievements did not measure up to his task as a business leader. He lost his sight during the last part of his life, and died on 7 July 1913 at his home, 16 Upper Belgrave Road, Clifton, Bristol. He specified numerous bequests in his will, including a sum of £42,000 which was to be distributed among all employees with more than five years' service.

There was no obvious, long-term successor, the cocoa and chocolate sides of the business were run separately with family members not on speaking terms, and the firm was merged with Cadbury to form the British Cocoa and Chocolate Company, a holding company, in 1919. Following the injection of new management, a modern factory was erected at Somerdale, near Bristol, in 1921, and in 1935 Fry Ltd became a fully fledged subsidiary of the new amalgamated concern.

Robert Fitzgerald 

Sources  S. Diaper, 'J. S. Fry & Sons: growth and decline in the chocolate industry', Studies in the business history of Bristol, ed. C. E. Harvey and J. Press (1988), 33-54 + P. H. Emden, Quakers in commerce: a record of business achievement (1939) + Confectionery (12 July 1913), 546 + The Times (8 July 1913), 11 + G. Wagner, 'Fry, Joseph Storrs', DBB + DNB + d. cert.
Archives Cadbury Schweppes Archive, Birmingham
Likenesses  J. Beattie, photograph, priv. coll. [see illus.] · portrait, Cadbury Schweppes, Birmingham
Wealth at death  £1,332,525 11s. 3d.: resworn probate, 23 July 1913, CGPLA Eng. & Wales



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