WORCESTER High Street was closed to traffic and lined by silent crowds on the day of the funeral of Richard Cadbury in 1935.

It was a show of deep respect and public gratitude to a leading local figure who had been such a generous benefactor and so caring for the city's poorer folk. He had been a man with a mission, literally, paying for three mission halls to be built, primarily for Worcester's less fortunate families.

Richard Cadbury was the son of one of the two Cadbury brothers - Richard and George - who founded the famous chocolate factory at Birmingham, in Victorian times. Alas, his mother, Elizabeth, died in giving birth to Richard.

For three years, the youthful Richard Cadbury gained experience of fruit growing in Jersey, and then spent six years in South Africa. He sailed home mid-way through his stay to marry his English sweetheart.

They returned to this country in 1902 and set up home in Worcester, Richard becoming a director of the family's chocolate company and being given charge of the now famous Bournville Village.

Rose Hill House off London Road - now St Richard's Hospice - was the first Worcester home of Richard Cadbury and his wife and four children.

One of his sons, Arthur, aged 10 and at school in Malvern, was killed when a wall fell on him.

Like many of the Cadbury chocolate-making family, Richard was a Quaker and was much involved in the Religious Society of Friends and their Adult School Movement which taught reading and writing to adults, who used the Bible as their text book and were each given a glass of milk.

The classes took place in a building in Friar Street, a mediaeval thoroughfare then surrounded by congested and overcrowded streets and houses, with a liberal sprinkling of pubs, pawnshops and "common" lodging houses. It was an environment where Richard Cadbury came to know at first-hand the living conditions, hardships and hazards confronting many of Worcester's poorer families.

He was also elected to the Worcester Board of Guardians which ran the city's Workhouse, and was appointed a magistrate too, bringing him face-to-face with more victims of social conditions. Alcoholism and gambling were then scourges which reduced many a family to misery and extreme poverty.

To help a few handicapped and unfortunate folk, Richard Cadbury started a small sweet factory in out-buildings at his home, but he felt strongly that people craved more than practical help - they needed to know the love of God.

To this end, he opened the Welcome Mission in Friar Street and gathered around him a band of committed helpers, who went out to hold open-air services on street corners, hoping to draw people into the Mission. A nurse named Chilvers was also based at the Mission, helping countless folk with health problems.

Richard Cadbury also bought two historic buildings in Friar Street - Tudor House and the adjoining Cross Keys pub - and set up a coffee house where people from the neighbourhood could obtain inexpensive meals and non-alcoholic drinks. Sadly, rationing during the First World War forced its closure.

For some reason, Richard Cadbury switched from being a Quaker to a Methodist and, in 1932, paid for another interdenominational mission hall to be built on an expanse of land he owned in Bromwich Road.

At the same time, he gave the Methodist Church a similar sum of money to build a church at Brickfields. The cash was used to erect a large tin hut called the Glenthorne Mission, which was in use for several years but no longer exists.

By this time, Richard and his family were living at Lower Wick House, off Malvern Road.

The Welcome Mission in Friar Street survived until the redevelopment days of the 1960s, and money from its sale was used to build a mission at Ronkswood, though for some years now this has been in the hands of the Salvation Army.

Interestingly, Richard Cadbury's wife was the daughter of a Church of England vicar, and the couple always went their separate ways on Sunday mornings. Their long-serving chauffeur Frank Ansell would drop off Mrs Cadbury at St Nicholas Church, while her husband would walk to the Pump Street Methodist Church. It was there that his funeral took place in 1935, after his death at the age of 66.

Richard's daughter, Evelyn Cadbury remained a Quaker throughout her life and had Worcester as her home base. She was a qualified nurse and midwife and spent some years overseas, actively involved in relief work. She was an Independent Worcester city councillor for a time, and did much voluntary work locally. Miss Cadbury died in 1990, aged 85.

Her sister, Elizabeth fell in love with a refugee from the Russian Revolution of 1917 - a man who was taken on by Richard Cadbury to help his gardener at Lower Wick House. The Russian was given the English name Clark, though it transpired he was a Russian count, whose father had been head of the Russian railways. The family had owned much property in Moscow, but been stripped of their riches by the Revolution.

He married Elizabeth Cadbury and became an executive of the Midlands Electricity Board, in charge of the Birmingham area. They lived at Selly Oak, but he returned to Worcester to personally re-wire the Bromwich Road Mission, working through the night.

He ended up teaching Russian at Birmingham University and once went back to Moscow, but was forbidden from going anywhere near properties once owned by his family.

Richard Cadbury's son David was involved in the family business at Bourneville but died a few years ago.

Ken Jones, Chairman of the Bromwich Road Mission, has boyhood memories of watching Richard Cadbury's funeral procession pass along a crowded High Street. He was just 10 at the time.