The first artist employed by Cadbury was Sophia Pumphrey, who joined Cadbury Brothers in 1896.
There’s not much known about her, but she was in the firm’s service for 22 years, eventually becoming Chief Artist and Head Forewoman. We do know that she hand-painted miniature Bournville scenes for a box of chocolates presented to Queen Mary in 1919.
In 1905 William Cadbury commissioned the first proper Cadbury logo. He was in Paris and chose Georges Auriol, who also designed the signs for the Paris Metro, to create the design.
It was a stylised cocoa tree interwoven with the Cadbury name. Registered in 1911 it was used on presentation boxes, catalogues, tableware and promotional items, and imprinted onto the aluminum foil that was used to wrap moulded chocolate bars. It might not be something we’d recognise today but it was used consistently from 1911-1939 and again after the Second World War.
The house colours, Cadbury script and a ‘glass and a half’
The house colours of purple and gold were first used by Cadbury at the turn of the century, and Milk Tray was purple at launch in 1915. But it wasn’t until 1920 that this most regal of colours adorned Cadbury Dairy Milk.
Purple and gold were firmly established at Cadbury by the beginning of the 1920s. And at the same time, the now-famous Cadbury script appeared.
The Cadbury script logo was based on the signature of William A Cadbury and first appeared on the transport fleet in 1921, before being used on sales catalogues and seal designs. But it wasn’t until 1952 that it was used across major brands. It’s become simpler over the years too – it was quite fussy to start with.
Another crucial element was the ‘Glass and a half’ logo. It was originally used in 1928 on press and posters, but since then it’s been in TV ads and on wrapper designs, where you can still see it to this day. First of all it was just on Cadbury Dairy Milk, but it’s become the face of the company in recent years.
A less successful innovation was 1932’s ‘Famous Artists’ series of chocolate boxes, produced in response to a Government commission encouraging better design. Though well-known artists like Arthur Rackham, Mark Gertler and Dame Laura Knight illustrated them, they weren’t hugely popular with the chocolate-buying public.