Chivers and Sons
Chivers is an Irish brand of jams and preserves. For a large part of the 20th century Chivers and Sons were Britain's leading preserves manufacturers, however the brand is currently owned by the Boyne Valley Group who make a range of preserves using the Chivers name.
Residents of Cottenham since the 17th century, the Chivers family moved to Histon in the first years of the 19th century when John Chivers relocated to a house on the Cottenham Road there with his brother (William) and sister, and his three sons Philip, Stephen and Thomas all became market gardeners. Some years later the railway arrived in the village when a station opened to passengers in 1847. Realising the potential opportunities that the railway brought to the village, in 1850 Stephen Chivers (d.1907), son of John, bought an orchard that ran alongside the railway and developed a fruit distribution business, growing to 150 acres (0.61 km2) by 1860. In 1870 Stephen sent his teenage sons William and John to open a distribution centre in Bradford. After a while the sons realised that the majority of their fruit was being purchased by jam manufacturers, and so in 1873, after an exceptional fruit harvest, they convinced their father to let them make their first batch of jam in a barn off Milton Road, Impington.
By 1875 the Victoria Works had been opened next to Histon railway station to improve the manufacture of jam and they produced stone jars containing two, four or six pounds of jam, with glass jars first used in 1885. In around 1885 they had 150 employees.
Over the next decade they added marmalade to their offering which allowed them to employ year-round staff, rather than seasonal workers at harvest time. This was followed by their clear dessert jelly (1889), and then lemonade, mincemeat, custard powder, and Christmas puddings. By 1896 the family owned 500 acres (2.0 km2) of orchards.
They began selling their products in cans in 1895, and the rapid growth in demand was overseen by Charles Lack (d.1912), their chief engineer, who developed the most efficient canning machinery in Europe and by the end of the century Chivers had become one of the largest manufacturers of preserves in the world. He later added a variety of machines for sorting, can making, vacuum-caps and sterilisation that helped retain Chivers' advantage over its rivals well into the 20th century. By the turn of the century the factory was entirely self-sufficient, growing all its own fruit, and supplying its own water and electricity. The factory made its own cans, but also contained a sawmill, blacksmiths, coopers, carpenters, paint shop, builders and basket makers.
...
Wikipedia