Fred Bulmer

Fred Bulmer (1865-1941) was born at Credenhill just a few miles west of Hereford where his father was Rector.   From school, he won a Classics exhibition to King’s College in Cambridge, thriving in its atmosphere and also winning an athletics blue.  He then eschewed a career elsewhere, joining his younger brother, Percy, in the fledgling cider business.  

Nurtured in a progressive form of liberalism at Cambridge, and naturally sensitive to the want and oppression evident in the world, and indeed indifference, he saw that intervention was needed to help the poor.   He advocated a minimum wage, the building of houses, medical aid and the founding of schools.   As a County Councillor, then Mayor in 1908, and again in 1925, he vigorously pursued reforms.   ‘The capitalist’, he said, ‘must be judged by the use he makes of it, and the amount he spends on himself’.

In 1938, he made over a tenth of his personal wealth to a welfare fund for the employees of the cider firm.  This became the EF Bulmer Trust for the provision of help to former HP Bulmer plc employees, and for the people of Herefordshire, suffering from want, need and hardship.