Description:The final group of images depicting cocoa plantations associated with Cadbury in the early twentieth century are by the artist Frank Newbould. During the 1920s and 1930s, Newbould was commissioned on a number of occasions to produce artwork for Cadbury. His images depicted the Bournville Works, as well as other sites owned by the company. Newbould was a well known graphic artist and designed advertising posters for London Underground Transport, as well as for the Empire Marketing Board. During the late 1920s, Newbould was commissioned to produce artwork for a publication entitled Cocoa: the Story of its Cultivation, published in 1927. This publication was one of a series produced by Cadbury during the late 1920s, focusing on key aspects of the company, including transport and working and leisure practices at the Works.<small><sup>1</sup></small>
Newbould’s designs for Cocoa: the Story of its Cultivation were in a bold graphic style. He used vibrant colours to illustrate some of the key stages in cocoa cultivation from harvesting through to the preparation and shipment of dried beans. Newbould’s work included illustrations of the cocoa pods first being removed from the trees by male labourers using a goulet.<small><sup>2</sup></small> This was hard physical labour carried out only by men. The next stage, illustrated here, saw male labourers using a cutlass to split open the cocoa pods so that female labourers could remove the beans and pulp them into baskets. The beans would then be allowed to sweat for a period of time before being transferred to drying platforms.<small><sup>3</sup></small> Newbould’s cover image for Cadbury’s publication illustrated the dried beans being packed on the drying platforms ready for shipment.
<font color="#666633"><small><sup>1</sup> Cadbury Bros. Ltd, Bournville: Work & Play (Bournville, 1927) [BA&H: LP.66.53.BOU]
<sup>2</sup> A goulet was a long bamboo pole with a sharp blade at the end; it enabled cocoa pods to be removed from high branches. Cutlasses were also used to remove pods from lower branches. Watercolour, Harvesting Cocoa Pods by Frank Newbould, 1927 [BM&AG: 1980P75]
<sup>3</sup> Brandon Head, The Food of Gods: A Popular Account of Cocoa (1903), http://www.gutenberg.org/files/16035/16035-h/16035-h.htm<;/small></font>