Bittersweet: The Story of Hartley’s Jam

Bittersweet charts the story of a great preserves empire and the extraordinary man at its heart. In a life that spanned the Victorian era of idealism and invention, William Pickles Hartley rose from comparatively humble beginnings to create one of the largest preserves firms in the world. With purpose built factories in Liverpool and London, Hartley’s was the market leader, renowned for the superior quality of its products. William Hartley, however, was not simply a profi t-seeking businessman. He was an enlightened entrepreneur who married a beguiling vision of commercial progress with an unalterable belief in the essential goodness of human nature. Hartley not only built a model village for his workers, but introduced innovative schemes for their welfare that were years ahead of his time. He was also a celebrated philanthropist, whose many benefactions included a public sanatorium for consumptives, an orphanage, hospitals, almshouses and a botanical institute. In 1908, when he was knighted, he was already as famous as those other great Victorian pioneers George Cadbury and William Lever. In a fresh, engaging blend of history and biography, Nicholas Hartley, a direct descendant of Sir William, preserves for posterity the struggles, successes, places and characters that made Hartley’s ‘the greatest name in jam-making’.