As a factory owner he demonstrated the Quaker principle that all human beings are equal in several ways: he would arrive first to make sure all the heaters were working in the winter, and when it rained he would stand on the nearby railway platform himself while his workers stayed indoors, and would blow a whistle as the train approached so they could remain dry while waiting. In 1900 his son George Cadbury set up the Bournville Trust, in which 330 acres were developed into high quality housing; the authors state that the mortality rate in Birmingham at the time was 187 per 1,000 (which seems impossibly high) but in the Bournville Village it was 47 per 1,000.
The workers pioneered an early form of trade unionism; in 1893 women had voted to start later than the 6am start time for men, and in 1902 a formal Men’s and Women’s Suggestion Committee was established. In 1911 working hours for all workers were reduced to 44 hours a week, and Saturday was a half day.
Marx argued that industrial conflict is inevitable: the owners always need to reduce their costs of production, which means labour costs will be forced downwards to benefit the employer. The capitalist system will never stop treating labour as a commodity, yet John and then George Cadbury treated their labour as human beings. They built swimming pools for workers to help them clean off the dust from the factories, for example. Their principle of equality helped to bridge the gap between owner and labour. They used their profits to benefit the community, and they allowed workers to participate in decision making through the Suggesting Committee, which allowed their concerns to be communicated and addressed.
They did have a lasting impact on business and their model can still be used, the authors conclude. Their village helped to influence the Garden City Movement and planning for new towns after 1945.
Finally it should also be mentioned that Quaker businesses have attracted their fair share of criticism for unethical behaviour, even during their most explicitly Christian pioneering stages. David Jeremy, in the introduction to David Jeremy (ed.) (1998), writes that in 1908 Cadbury was accused of profiting from the slave trade by using slave-grown cocoa from Portuguese West African islands São Tome and Principe, although George Cadbury won a libel case in 1909, and by 1912 had switched to suppliers in the Gold Coast of Ghana. Bryant & May, the match producer founded by two Quakers in the East End of London in 1843, created such unhealthy conditions in its factory it was the main focus of the London matchgirls strike of 1888[16].
Case study: the proposed Quaker Bank
The establishment of a new Quaker bank is being considered at the time of writing. As a modern incarnation of a business phenomenon more closely associated with the 19th century, its planned management strategy makes for interesting reading, particularly as it draws from both the heritage of older Quaker enterprise and modern innovations in alternative forms of organisation. An article in The Friend, the Quaker journal, outlines the intentions of the Quakers and Business Group members who are overseeing the bank’s preparations:
This will be a bank with a big difference. We shall give our profits to charity. We shall pay no bonuses. Power will be answerable to those it affects: the owners will be the communities we serve, including customers, employees, suppliers, local communities, the environment and, we hope, the Religious Society of Friends in Britain. Our bank will not exist to create private wealth only for its private owners. We will run the bank in accordance with our Testimonies: for example, equality will mean that all staff, including the general manager, will behave decisively, but not imperiously, will seek unity as far as practicable and be transparent in their decision-making. Truth will mean we will be honest and will pay our suppliers on the nail.[17]