THE story of York’s rich chocolate-making heritage and the pivotal role it has played in Britain’s passion for the treat is being told in a new book.

Chocolate, written by Paul Chrystal – who owns the Knaresborough Bookshop – has delved into the history of confectionery in the UK from the 17th century to the present day.

And it contains chapters and illustrations devoted to the story of York’s chocolate giants Terry’s and Rowntree’s, as well as focusing on how such companies have coped with fierce worldwide competition and foreign takeovers in recent years.

Mr Chrystal’s retelling of the Rowntree’s story begins with Mary Tuke establishing a grocery business, first in Walmgate and then in Castlegate, in 1725, but having to wait seven years to trade as a grocer following “a number of legal wrangles” with York Merchant Adventurers’ Company.

The business was ultimately bought by Joseph Rowntree I’s son Henry Isaac Rowntree – a friend of a member of the Tuke family – in 1862, and the new firm started with 12 staff and sales of “about £3,000”, with Tuke’s Superior Cocoa being their prime product.

The book says that Henry’s brother, Joseph Rowntree II, “probably saved the ‘hopelessly embarrassed’ company from bankruptcy”, but that he had a “problem with advertising, or ‘puffery’ as he called it” and “preferred to let the quality of his cocoa speak for itself”, with deliveries often bearing the name of the customer rather than Rowntree. After moving to its current Haxby Road base in 1884, the workforce rose from 182 to 1,613 in the space of 15 years.

In the chapter concentrating on Terry’s, Mr Chrystal tells how its founder, Joseph Terry, came to York from Pocklington and served an apprenticeship as an apothecary in Stonegate before joining and eventually developing a confectionery business run by a relative of his wife, Harriet Atkinson.

Early Terry’s products included candied eringo, coltsfoot rock and “conversation lozenges”, the forerunner of Love Hearts, which bore messages such as “I want a wife” and “Can you polka?”.

The firm moved to its Bishopthorpe Road factory in 1926, which saw revenue double in the space of 20 years, and its famous Chocolate Orange originally started life as a Chocolate Apple. The book says that, at one point, “one in ten Christmas stockings reputedly contained a Terry’s Chocolate Orange”.

Chocolate: The British Chocolate Industry by Paul Chrystal, published by Shire Publications, is now on sale priced £7.99. For more information and to buy the book, visit shirebooks.co.uk.