Jesus, jam and a Christian businessman

This year marks the 150th anniversary of a brand established by William Hartley that is still thriving today.

Despite the worldwide fame of his jam, Hartley himself is not a familiar figure to the public. Few know that he was a devout Christian whose stated purpose in life was to ‘serve the Lord every day to the best of my ability’. His business practice reflected his faith, earning him a reputation for integrity, quality and outstanding care for his customers and employees. Nothing gave him greater joy than to share his immense wealth with others.

The young Christian

William Hartley was born in 1846 in Colne, Lancashire. His father, John, was a tinsmith, his mother, Margaret, ran a grocery in the town. He was the only one of their children to survive infancy.

William gratefully acknowledged his Christian upbringing: ‘My parents and grandparents were godly people. I was always under the deepest religious impressions.’ He was also indebted to his chapel Sunday School teacher for the growth of his faith, a man whose character and deep spirituality made a lasting impression on him. From his early adult years William served as organist and Sunday School teacher at the Primitive Methodist chapel in Colne where the family worshipped.

William left school at 14 and started work in his mother’s grocery. At 16 he was put in charge of the business and his entrepreneurial talent was immediately obvious. As there was no proper refrigeration at the time, food quickly spoiled. William therefore added a saltery where customers could have their own food salted to prolong its life. He also stocked ready-salted food for sale. The success of this venture prompted him to expand the business further by providing a wholesale service to local retailers, selling grocery items in bulk. Unlike many of his unscrupulous competitors who mixed brick dust with their cocoa and ground rice with their sugar, William’s grocery items were always trustworthy and his weights and measures always honest.

As a result of his integrity his business flourished and by the time he was 20 he had earned enough to marry his childhood sweetheart Martha Horsfield. Martha, who like William had a deep Christian faith, was the daughter of a Colne grocer and the youngest of 13 children, a sharp contrast to William who grew up as an only child. They were to have a long and happy marriage with eight daughters and one son.

The jam manufacturer is born

By the time he was 25 William’s wholesale business had grown to become one of the largest in Lancashire, but in an unexpected twist of circumstances his career changed direction. When his jam supplier became unreliable William stopped doing business with him. Not wanting to leave his customers without jam he decided to make his own and in the summer of 1871, with a workforce of 12, he produced his first hundred tons.

From the outset his jam was of the purest quality, free from dubious ingredients found in the jams of rival producers. There were no turnips to boost the weight, no carrots as a substitute for sugar, no tiny chips of wood imitating seeds. It became so popular that he decided to give up his wholesale business and start large-scale jam production. To do this he needed to be close to the sugar refineries of Liverpool, the Mersey docks and a main railway line. He felt Bootle was ideally situated for this purpose and told his family and friends that he needed to relocate there.

He was shocked by their hostile reaction. He was accused of selfish ambition and warned that his greed would be the ruin of him. Despite their many hurtful comments he was convinced that leaving Colne was the right thing to do and in June 1874 he sold his wholesale business and moved with Martha and their four daughters to Bootle, where he opened a factory next to the Leeds-Liverpool Canal.

But things soon started to go wrong. Within a year his youngest daughter died aged just 19 months. And in the business sphere there were crushing pressures. All his available capital had been invested in the construction of the new works and without money to buy fruit and sugar he had to take on a seven-year loan with exorbitant interest payments. Money became very tight and William worked long hours to try to make ends meet.

The joy of giving

In the midst of all their struggles, William and Martha made a decision that showed the strength and depth of their Christian faith. William tells the story:

‘Probably the greatest event of my life occurred on January 1, 1877. On that day my wife and I made a written vow that we would devote a definite and well-considered share of our income for religious and humanitarian work and that this should be a first charge, and that we should not give to the Lord something when we had finished with everything else.’

They resolved, whatever their own financial difficulties, never to give less than 10% of their gross income and always to increase their giving in proportion to the growth of their income. What motivated them to make this commitment? As William explained to a friend: ‘When we think of the life and sacrifice of Jesus Christ, then nothing we can do is too much.’

During those early years of struggle William stuck firmly to his business principles: ‘Our aim has always been to win the confidence of the public by making the best possible article and selling it at a fair price.’ As a result, his business went from strength to strength. Eventually the Bootle factory became too small and he opened a new one a few miles away in Aintree, home of the famous Grand National steeplechase.

At Aintree he had a permanent workforce of 800 which rose to 2,000 in the busy summer season when the fruit was harvested. In the treatment of his employees William stressed that he always tried ‘to carry out the teaching of Jesus Christ’. He knew each of them by name and he ensured that their working conditions were safe. If he noticed a task was physically too demanding, he would look for a way of making it easier: ‘What can be done to take the hardness out of this job? Never mind the cost.’ When he discovered that he couldn’t push a truck in a newly-delivered batch, he ordered ‘Scrap them!’ Next to the factory he built a garden village to create a healthy living environment for company employees.

It caught the attention of other manufacturers that William had introduced a profit-sharing scheme with his employees. Assuming there must be some commercial benefit in it, the manufacturers met with him to find out more. He explained to them: ‘Profit-sharing is over and above a fair and just wage and is given, not because I think it pays commercially, but because it seems to me right and doing as I would be done by.’

They showed no further interest.

The demand for Hartley’s jam eventually outstripped the capacity of the Aintree works to meet it and William opened a second factory in London. With great wealth at his disposal he gave huge amounts for the construction of hospitals and for medical research and he also funded major extensions to the Primitive Methodists’ theological college in Manchester where the denomination’s ministers were trained. He also gave money anonymously to individuals. He had a network of trusted friends who informed him of cases of dire need. He never questioned his friends’ judgment; he only ever asked if the amount they recommended was actually enough.

In 1908 William was knighted for his philanthropy. A year later he was made a Freeman of Colne for his gift of a Cottage Hospital and a home for the aged poor. He received great appreciation for his generosity but did not consider it to be anything extraordinary. He publicly stated: ‘It is the first duty of those who have money to remember in a liberal manner those who have not. Where much is given much is required.’

First World War

When the First World War broke out in 1914 the country faced huge challenges. For business people an acute shortage of labour and materials presented massive problems. William found the considerable reduction in sugar and fruit quantities an immense strain and at times wondered if his business could survive. Despite the strain William refused to raise his prices or to compromise on quality. After the war an ex-serviceman remarked that Hartley ‘gave the fighting Tommies his very best jams’.

The unstable financial situation of the war years did not deter William from making generous donations to hospitals and to organisations like the Red Cross. He also gave financial support to the families of any of his employees serving in the armed forces. Martha personally delivered envelopes containing money to their homes.

The heavy demands of the war progressively took a toll on William’s health and by its end he had begun to suffer angina attacks at the least exertion. It was only with the help of family members that he was able to continue running his business. However, in 1922 his health problems finally caught up with him and on 25 October he had a massive heart attack and died. He was 76.

His death made national news. The following Sunday congregations in churches and chapels across the country paused respectfully to reflect on his life and passing.

The secret of success

During his lifetime William achieved phenomenal success as an entrepreneur and he was also recognised as one of the country’s leading philanthropists, but he did not want to be defined by his achievements. Something else mattered far more to him:

‘I am much exercised as to whether I am such a disciple of Jesus Christ that my work people, my business friends, my neighbours and my family can constantly see the Spirit of the Master in my actions.’

What were his guiding principles in living up to this high standard? We can conclude his story in his own words:

‘My last word must be that we followers of Jesus Christ must carry into our life His spirit and teaching, and that whatever we think Jesus Christ would have done had He been in our place, whether we are employers or employed, whether we are in business or out of business, that we are compelled to do. This is the secret of all true success: the consecration of ourselves to Him who loved us and laid down His life for us.’