Walters Palm Toffee

History of H J Packer & Carsons

Edward Packer founded the business in 1881 in Armoury Square, Bristol, joined by his sister and brother. In 1884 the family took on H. J. Burrows, becoming H. J. Packer & Co, but the partnership dissolved a year later and Burrows became sole owner. Within a year Burrows sold the business for £950 to Caleb Bruce Cole. Sales grew greatly from 1894, prompting a move in 1901 to a new purpose-built factory in Greenbank.

Between 1903 and 1912 sales rose 250%, helped by Two ounces per penny quality chocolates for children and lines like Packers Chocolate Mixers. In 1908 the company bought Glasgow-based Carsons and created the brand Bonds of Bristol for luxury chocolates. Carsons' Glasgow factory closed and production moved to a new factory in Shortwood, near Mangotsfield, Gloucestershire. By the early 1920s the company was Britain's 4th largest chocolate manufacturer with over 2,000 employees, introducing Milk Crispets.

Carsons Chocolate was taken by Sir Ernest Shackleton on his expeditions. The company's fortunes declined by the start of World War II. In 1955 the Packers brand was relaunched with Summit chocolate bars and penny sweets like White Mice and Sweet cigarettes. By 1961 Carsons' production moved to Greenbank.

Carsons was the biggest British manufacturer of chocolate liqueurs sold under the Famous Brands name. In 1962 H J Packer was renamed Carsons Ltd. The company was still unprofitable, losing £39,000 by 1963. It was taken over by James Goldsmith in 1964, becoming one of the founding businesses of Cavenham Foods.

History of Hollands of Southport

John Holland figured out a new method for making creamy toffee in the 1890s, working out of 23a Cross Street in Southport, a property his uncle James Ford had given him. Holland had learned the trade as an apprentice to Ford, a confectioner in Ormskirk. His biggest seller was Everton Toffee. During World War I, the company set up a new factory on Virginia Street.

John Arthur Holland took over as manager in 1927, and the business began operating as John Holland & Son in 1932. He assumed full control in 1936 and started using the slogan "Best on Earth." A fire damaged the site in 1940. After the war, the company grew, making its first exports to the United States in 1953.

The year before, in 1952, John Arthur's sons—John Arthur Junior and Peter—took over, and the firm was renamed J A & P Holland. It went public on the Liverpool Stock Exchange in 1953, and the Virginia Street factory got an extension the following year. As the toffee market shrank, the brothers decided to buy up competitors. Their first big acquisition was Coq D'or Chocolates in 1959, then Fillerys Toffees in 1960—a premium brand with a Marks & Spencer contract—followed by Casket Confectionery and London's Walters Palm Toffee for £385,000.

Later that year, the company listed on the London Stock Exchange, having absorbed more than 20 firms. In 1961, it bought S. Parkinson & Son, Harper Paper for £1.25 million, Mackay Brothers of Edinburgh, and George & Son of Southend-on-Sea, among others. The Daily Mail declared Holland the world's largest toffee maker, and by 1965 it ran 33 wholesale warehouses. John Arthur Holland Junior created a soft toffee in 1963, marketed as Chewzits.

The company skipped dividends in 1963 and 1964, as many of its subsidiaries struggled. Independent shareholders clashed with the Holland family, and in 1965 James Goldsmith's Cavenham Foods launched a takeover bid that the Hollands resisted but ultimately lost.

Cavenham Confectionery Ltd

Carsons, Yeatmans, J A & P Holland, and Paramount Laboratories came together to create the Cavenham Confectionery division within Cavenham Foods. Its product lineup included Famous Names, Chewits, Hollands Toffee, Fillery's Toffee, Walters Palm Toffee, Ewbanks Liquorice, Dr Who & The Daleks Sweet Cigarettes, Royal Doncaster Butterscotch, and Parkinsons Boiled Sweets. The new company shut down many of its factories, focusing production at Carsons' Greenbank site, Holland's Southport facility, and Parkinsons' Doncaster plant.

In 1967, with Cavenham Foods struggling financially, James Goldsmith combined Cavenham Confectionery with Perrier's confectionery business, which owned the Menier and Lindt brands, in a 50/50 partnership. The venture exported $750,000 worth of goods to America in 1968 and acquired the brand and recipes of Elizabeth Shaw. The partnership ended in 1969, and Cavenham Confectionery was sold to Conwood SA for £1.2 million—a company equally owned by Cavenham Foods and Conwood Corporation—but it was quickly bought back by Cavenham Foods.

In 1981, the business's management bought it for £8 million during James Goldsmith's dismantling of Cavenham Foods, and renamed it Famous Names Ltd.

Greenbank factory site

After the Walters Palm Toffee factory shut down in 2006, locals fought off an early plan to turn it into flats and houses. They saw the building as a piece of Bristol’s industrial past. George Ferguson backed them; he had previously turned an old Bedminster tobacco factory into the Tobacco Factory, a top arts and creativity spot. By 2012, the site sat empty because no one could agree on a workable future use.

An archived community group website holds more details. In late 2013, the building went back to Clydesdale Bank, and the Generator Group started planning. In August 2014, Generator South West put forward a plan for open spaces around a new housing and flat development. By 2016, problems had piled up.

Generator South West asked to be let off the legal requirement that 30 to 40 percent of any development be social housing, arguing that fixing up old historic buildings made the plan too expensive. The community group ACORN campaigned against this retreat on social housing, pointing to Bristol’s housing crisis and severe shortage of affordable homes. The Generator Group then worked with Bristol City Council to create 36 shared ownership homes alongside private ones.

The first homes ready for people to move into in 2021 were shared ownership. For details on the 1950s factory block that still hasn’t been developed, you can search the city council’s planning archive.