BW137

Cadbury Bros Ltd

Records of Cadbury Bros Ltd: plan of canal boat 1919.

1919

BW137

These records are available immediately for research

Cadbury's began a carrying fleet in 1912 to carry bags of chocolate crumbs, ground cocoa and a dry cocoa, sugar and evaporated milk mixture between their factories at Knighton and Bournville. The chocolate crumb service was extended in 1916 to Frampton and Bournville. In 1915, a service operated to collect fresh milk from local farms near the Shropshire Union Canal to their factory at Knighton. These boats were all horse-drawn, unlike those carrying the dry mixes, and capable of carrying 110 churns of milk. All the boats were numbered, rather than named. There were never more than about twelve boats operating at any one time. Nine were long-distance motor boats that took chocolate to London and sugar from Liverpool, with the rest of the fleet made up of the milk boats. Both types were painted with the company's colours and trademark writing. Cadbury's gave up carrying in 1930 and their products were transported by Severn & Canal Carrying Company instead. Fellows, Morton & Clayton took on some of the work from 1945 until the waterways were nationalised. British Waterways and a private carrier, Charles Ballinger, between them carried most of the Cadbury crumb traffic. Cadbury's made a brief return foray into carrying between 1966 and 1968, when cocoa was sent from Bournville to Regent's Canal Dock, ready to be exported to Holland. For further information on Cadbury Bros Ltd see Edward Paget-Tomlinson's 'The Illustrated History of Canals & River Navigations'.

It has not been possible to ascertain any original structure of record-keeping from the small number of records held for this company. The fonds has therefore been arranged in chronological order.