Oral Testimony of Annie Florence Hackett

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Date:1912

Description:There are very few early twentieth century oral testimonies or first hand accounts giving details of the experiences of Bournville Works' employees. Annie Florence Hackett’s account is typical of those that are housed within Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery’s collections, in that it tells of families moving to Bournville, or the Bournville area to find work at the factory. Annie began working for Cadbury in 1912.

‘My name is Annie Florence Hackett […] I was born on the 23rd April 1898. At the age of seven my mother decided to leave Smethwick and come to Bournville. She came to Bournville and found a house in Maryvale Road. There she took us all, five I think it was five at the time, and there we were very, very happy, plenty of room for us all, and I went to the Bournville School, the school was being built when we got there and by the time I was 5 I was able to go to Bournville School on the day it opened, on the 23rd April, 76 or 77 years ago. From there I progressed until I was 14, not a very good scholar, but just kept my place and at 14 I left school because my mother needed the money. I had to go to work and I went to Cadbury Brothers, which I enjoyed very much. I was put on the wrapping, hand wrapping. Interesting job, we sat in rows and we had a foreman who was very strict and if we did wrong we were told we were doing wrong. From there, when I got to be 16, I was put in a boxing room, boxing chocolates by hand, there was no enrobers, there was no belts in those days, all was done by hand and I was rather a quick worker, always had been quick, and I had been put on very good work, King George and all those kind of boxes there were then, in those days. I progressed from there and when I met a young man that I was fond of, I got married when I was 24.

When I was 24 I still thought that I ought to go to work because my husband hadn’t got a very good job, he’d been in the war, he’d been in the First World War and had suffered all those years and I lost him when he was 56 and I was 49 years of age.’

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Image courtesy of: Birmingham Museums & Art Gallery

Donor ref:BM&AG: R0362 (92/1815)

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