Description:‘“All work no play” is not the rule in the Factory in a Garden at Bournville.’
The working and leisure environments of the working classes were the focus of many middle class reformers and social investigators during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Many social environments, such as public houses, were significant areas for concern, and were considered social catalysts in determining the moral and physical wellbeing of an individual.
George Cadbury emphatically believed that a happy, healthy and productive workforce was the responsibility of the employer. He produced a number of publications and articles promoting his industrial experiment at Bournville. Cadbury’s aim was to guide his employees towards a path of high moral welfare and good physical health. ‘The healthy spirit thus fostered reacts upon the work and helps to maintain the high standard’. Cadbury published a number of pamphlets on its educational and recreational programmes. Opportunities to engage in such programmes were encouraged during working-breaks, as well as after working hours. In this advertisement emphasis was placed on the engagement in team sports. Aside from the obvious health benefits, sport offered team building through the boosting of inter-departmental moral – if not a spot of rivalry. Cadbury believed this benefited work relations and ultimately the company’s profit margin. According to Played in Birmingham: Charting the Heritage of a City at Play, Cadbury made significant financial investments in the provision of recreation grounds and pavilions. In addition to the Men’s and Girls' grounds adjacent to the factory, the company also opened Rowheath in 1924.<small><sup>1</sup></small> Bournville Works leisure facilities may have inspired other Birmingham firms to support sporting pursuits. During the early twentieth century a number of works football and other sporting teams were established, resulting in factories renting or acquiring recreational grounds.
Cadbury also used sporting personalities to endorse their products during this period. In the early twentieth century, Cadbury commissioned graphic artist Cecil Charles Windsor Aldin to produce a series of designs which included the depiction of golf, rowing, football and cycling in conjunction with the promotion of Cocoa Essence. In other advertisements the company regularly referenced the principal medical journal The Lancet when promoting the health benefits of cocoa.
<font color="#666633"><small><sup>1</sup> Steve Beuchampe and Simon Inglis, Played in Birmingham: Charting the Heritage of a City at Play (2006), p.38</small></font>