Foundation Guide
A Tour of Our Global Community of Giving
Joseph Rowntree was raised in a Quaker family, the second of three sons born to Sarah Stephenson and Joseph Rowntree. His father owned a successful grocery business in York. In 1850, Joseph went with his father on a visit to Ireland, where he witnessed firsthand the starvation and destitution caused by the Great Famine.
This experience proved formative for 14-year-old Joseph, shaping the development of his liberal political views and future business practices. On leaving Bootham School a year later, he began to work as an apprentice in his father’s grocery business, where he remained until his father died in 1859 and he took over as joint manager with his elder brother, John.
In 1869, Joseph Rowntree took his capital from the thriving grocery business and joined forces with his younger brother, Henry, to expand the small cocoa and chocolate company that Henry had recently founded. Joseph developed his ideas in liberalism and social reform within the management and business practices of Rowntree & Co., while also developing and marketing successful cocoa and confectionery products that saw the company expand from its original 30 employees in 1869 to more than 2,000 workers at the end of the 19th century.
Rowntree & Co. became a limited liability company in 1897, and by 1898 it was selling its products as far afield as Australia and New Zealand. Joseph held the position of company chairman until he retired in 1923. Rowntree & Co. Ltd. merged with John Mackintosh & Co. in 1969 and was taken over by Nestlé in 1988.
Even as a powerful and wealthy businessman, Joseph Rowntree was deeply concerned about the social problems of his time, firmly committed to understanding the underlying causes of poverty and determined to improve the quality of life of his employees.
Workers at Rowntree & Co. were provided with a library, free education, a social welfare officer and medical and dental care. Joseph’s visionary endeavors also include the founding of one of the first occupational pension schemes for employees. In 1901 he purchased over 100 acres of land bordering the Rowntree & Co. factory site, and built New Earswick, an affordable housing project for low-income families. It was intended as a social experiment as well as providing decent homes for his own employees.
In 1904 Joseph Rowntree established three charitable trusts, each with its own distinct purpose to develop different aspects of his thinking and take action on social problems such as poverty, housing, education and political reform: the Joseph Rowntree Village Trust (now the Joseph Rowntree Foundation), the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust, and the Joseph Rowntree Social Services Trust (now the Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust).
Each organization received substantial quantities of shares in the chocolate company from which Joseph generated his wealth. All the trusts are still independently working towards applying their founder’s ideas to resolve the problems of society today.
