Description:

Detail of Joseph Fry,1728-1787, from a 1930 painting entitled Some Who Made Bristol Famous by Ernest Board. Fry was a Quaker, dispensing chemist, chocolate and cocoa manufacturer.Cocoa was drunk as a bitter drink sweented with
sugar. Used also to make chocolate, cocoa was grown on the slave planations in the Caribbean and brought to Bristol for processing. Even though Fry’s business was partly dependant on the slaves, he was an Abolitionist – he was against the slave trade.

Chocolate was first used as a drink, sweetened with sugar to mask the bitter flavour of the chocolate. Later it was used for making eating chocolate. At this period, most people drank beer, wine or spirits. Water was not safe to drink, tea coffee and chocolate were expensive. Quakers promoted drinking chocolate as an alternative to alcohol.

Creator: Ernest Board

Date: 1930

Copyright: Copyright BCC Museum

Object ID:K917