In 1824, John Cadbury opened a grocer's shop in Bull Street in Birmingham and started to sell tea, coffee and drinking chocolate alongside everything else. In 1831, he opened a factory and started to manufacture his own product, and by 1842 the company was selling almost 30 different types of drinking chocolate and cocoa.

In 1861, the now floundering firm was taken over by two of his sons, Richard and George, who turned things around and continued to grow the company into the organisation we see today.

There is a lot of information available about George Cadbury, but the only previously published biography of his older brother Richard is now out of print. The Life of Richard Cadbury is a brand-new biography hoping to put that straight, looking at the history and background behind the socialist, philanthropist and chocolatier.