Quaker Victorian Capitalists

THE UNPOPULARITY of their opinions and the ostracism they suffered set them apart from society and this led to extensive intermarriage and large family networks, which were to have considerable influence in commerce and industry. The Quaker family enterprise played a conspicuous role in...the Industrial Revolution... [and] were private, usually bearing the family name, wholly owned and managed by members of the family. The large Victorian family was capable of supplying a continuous flow of fresh blood to the firm and….making judicious marriages, new partnerships could add fresh stimulus to the enterprise....

The result was to be a battery of household names, including Barclays and Lloyds Banks, Allen and Hanbury pharmaceuticals, Huntley and Palmers biscuits, Cadburys, Frys and Rowntrees chocolate, Bryant and May matches, Clark’s shoes, Wedgwood china, Rickitt’s "Blue", Truman and Hambury’s breweries. Eventually they became integral parts of Unilever, ICI, British Steel and British Rail.

It is hard to believe that these families did not hold industrial England in the palms of their hands....Yet the society of Friends was a tiny sect whose numbers never amounted to more than one percent of the population and who adhered to a strict code of principles....

The Victorian Quakers.…were great believers in the rights and dignity of the individual [and] were aware of the extent to which they themselves had suffered from the self-righteousness of others. They detested exploitation and would have been appalled by modem corporate commerce...Their workers were generally better off than most, in both pay and conditions.

--David Burns Windsor, 1980

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