The authors give by way of example the role of Friends in financing the Stockton and Darlington Railway, the pioneering joint-stock steam locomotive railway. It sought to raise £100,000 by December 1818, and money came in from Friends locally and also thanks to national networks from Norwich, London and Whitby, with the result that by the successful conclusion of the subscription process, around £80,000 had been provided by Friends.
T. A. B. Corley further examines the network of trust that Quakers built up around the communities and businesses, in his chapter ‘Changing Quaker attitudes to wealth, 1690-1950’ in David Jeremy (ed.) (1998). Quakers in the 18th and 19th century were disproportionately represented among entrepreneurs. This was in part because of the ‘Quaker Cousinhood’ links mentioned above, which helped raise capital and mentor new business owners, but also because Quakers insisted on making goods of high quality sold at fair prices. From their foundation up until the end of the 19th century, Quakers were very inward looking to their close network of associates, set apart from the rest of society by their dress, relationships and even the people they could marry. When this began to dissolve, the authors say some of the more wealthy left their Meeting Houses to gain greater social respectability in the Church of England. Others became preoccupied with the 20th century’s wars, and with social injustice.
The concept of building, and rebuilding, trust in the workplace is considered from a faith perspective by Carlton J Snow’s chapter ‘Rebuilding trust in the fractured workplace’, in Robert Banks and Kimberly Powell (eds.) (2000). It categorises trust as part of the nonphysical capital of an organisation, and describes it as an asset that can make the workplace more productive and hence more effective and profitable.
G. Olusoji, A. Okanlawon and O. Owoyemi (2010) consider a range of innovative management techniques developed by Quaker businesses. The first point the authors make about Quakerism is that George Fox strongly believed anyone, rich or poor alike, could approach God through Christ. This theology influenced John and George Cadbury’s attitude towards their employees. John Cadbury was born in 1801 to an already wealthy Quaker family. At the time Quakers could not go to university or join the army (being pacifists) so John’s decision to go into business was a typical option. He opened a grocery shop in Birmingham in 1825 and then started making cocoa drinks in 1831, to provide an alternative to alcohol.