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    Joseph Rowntree
    Joseph Rowntree
    Joseph Rowntree
    Ebook115 pages50 minutes

    Joseph Rowntree

    By Chris Titley

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    About this ebook

    The Rowntree name is linked to some of the most iconic and well-loved brands of the 20th century, including the KitKat, Aero and Fruit Pastilles. On the way he transformed a small factory in York into a global business. But there is much more to the Joseph Rowntree story than chocolate. A prominent Quaker, social reformer, political campaigner and educationalist, he reshaped his home city and improved the welfare of generations of workers. Rather than diminish with his death in 1925, Rowntree's legacy has grown as the charitable trusts he founded become ever-more influential. This fascinating biography traces Joseph Rowntree's life from grocer's son to great Victorian philanthropist and beyond.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBloomsbury Publishing
    Release dateOct 9, 2013
    ISBN9780747814368
    Joseph Rowntree

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      Book preview

      Joseph Rowntree - Chris Titley

      INTRODUCTION

      BY THE TIME J OSEPH R OWNTREE reached the age of sixty-eight, he might have chosen to sit back and bask in the success of an extraordinary life. He had, after all, transformed a tiny cocoa works into an international household name. He had created enormous wealth for himself and his home city of York. As a Quaker and a politician, his influence had been felt far and wide on topics close to his heart including the welfare of workers, adult education and the temperance movement.

      But Joseph Rowntree was never one for looking back. So, in December 1904, he wrote a draft of the document that was to become known to historians as the Founder’s Memorandum. It was marked ‘Exceedingly Private’. Its contents have shaped public attitudes and policies for more than a century.

      Joseph and Antoinette Rowntree in later life with some of their grandchildren.

      Advertising for Fruit Gums.

      The document set out the reasons why he had created the three trusts that bore his name: the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust, the Joseph Rowntree Social Service Trust Ltd and the Joseph Rowntree Village Trust. The words he used in 1904 remain the trustees’ prime source of inspiration – and are still widely quoted in philanthropic circles:

      I feel that much of the current philanthropic effort is directed to remedying the more superficial manifestations of weakness or evil, while little thought or effort is directed to search out their underlying causes... Obvious distress or evil generally evokes so much feeling that the necessary agencies for alleviating it are pretty adequately supported…

      The Soup Kitchen in York never has difficulty in obtaining adequate financial aid, but an enquiry into the extent and causes of poverty would enlist little support.

      Today the Rowntree trusts are perhaps his most significant legacy. Thanks to their unstinting efforts to end social deprivation and injustice, they have improved the lives of countless people around the world.

      His influence extends beyond that of the trusts, however. Joseph is revered in York for his role in transforming an overgrown market town into a city with an industrial base. It is hard to overestimate Rowntree’s economic contribution to York from the end of the nineteenth century right through the twentieth century. For someone who cared so passionately about the plight of people in poverty, Joseph must have taken some comfort from the fact that he provided a good living to thousands of people from his home city.

      Panorama of Rowntree’s Cocoa and Chocolate Works from the Christmas issue of the Cocoa Works Magazine for staff, in December 1920.

      The Rowntree name also lives on as one of the confectionery greats. From Fruit Pastilles to Fruit Gums, KitKat to Black Magic, Smarties to Polos, it is attached to some of the world’s best-loved treats; and their production provides a source of income for thousands of families across many nations.

      Joseph Rowntree achieved this success not by exploiting his workers but by placing their welfare at the heart of his business. It was a radical approach. But the man misconceived by many as an avuncular pillar of the establishment was a non-conformist by character as well as by religion: his crusade to end poverty by tackling its root causes – rather than its immediate symptoms – was ahead of its time then, and resonates just as forcefully today.

      KitKat was a complete novelty, as a wafer coated in milk chocolate. It was launched in the 1930s and is today a globally recognised product, sold in more countries than any other confectionery product.

      Questions are now re-emerging about philanthropy, about the social responsibilities of our global corporations, about how we can achieve a fair and compassionate society. Can lessons relevant to our own age be drawn from the binding principles and achievements of Joseph Rowntree? The answer can only be found by doing the one thing he never did: pausing to look back at the life of this remarkable man.

      Sarah Stephenson, from Manchester, married Joseph Rowntree Senior in 1832. She mothered the young shop apprentices as well as her own five children, Joseph Junior being the second born. She is

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