Benjamin Seebohm Rowntree, CH (7 July 1871 – 7 October 1954) was an English sociological researcher, social reformer and

industrialist A business magnate, also known as a tycoon, is a person who has achieved immense wealth through the ownership of multiple lines of enterprise. The term characteristically refers to a powerful entrepreneur or investor who controls, through per ...

. He is known in particular for his three York studies of

poverty Poverty is the state of having few material possessions or little income. Poverty can have diverse

conducted in 1899, 1935, and 1951. The first York study involved a comprehensive survey into the living conditions of the poor in York during which investigators visited every

working class The working class (or labouring class) comprises those engaged in manual-labour occupations or industrial work, who are remunerated via waged or salaried contracts. Working-class occupations (see also " Designation of workers by collar colou ...

household, and his methodology inspired many subsequent researches in British empirical sociology."Benjamin Seebohm Rowntree." ''World of Sociology'', Gale, 2001. ''Gale In Context: Biography'', https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/K2427100159/BIC?u=mlin_c_collhc&sid=BIC&xid=9317a272. Accessed 6 Oct. 2019. By strictly defining the concept of poverty in his studies, he was able to reveal that the poverty in York was more of structural rather than moral reasons, such as of low wages, which went against the traditionally held view that the poor were responsible for their own plight.Joseph Rowntree Foundation Centenary: Poverty

Life

Seebohm Rowntree was born in

York York is a cathedral city with Roman origins, sited at the confluence of the rivers Ouse and Foss in North Yorkshire, England. It is the historic county town of Yorkshire. The city has many historic buildings and other structures, such as a ...

, the second son of the

Quaker Quakers are people who belong to a historically Protestant Christian set of denominations known formally as the Religious Society of Friends. Members of these movements ("theFriends") are generally united by a belief in each human's abili ...

Joseph Rowntree, who had been a master grocer but was becoming a successful cocoa and chocolate manufacturer, and Emma Antoinette Seebohm. He was educated first privately and then from the age of 10 at

Bootham School Bootham School is an independent Quaker boarding school, on Bootham in the city of York in England. It accepts boys and girls ages 3–19, and had an enrolment of 605 pupils in 2016. It is one of seven Quaker schools in England. The schoo ...

. Rowntree studied chemistry at

Owen's College, Manchester The Victoria University of Manchester, usually referred to as simply the University of Manchester, was a university in Manchester, England. It was founded in 1851 as Owens College. In 1880, the college joined the federal Victoria University. Af ...

for five terms before joining the family firm in 1889, where he laid the foundations of the firm's first chemistry department. He became the first Labour Director in 1897 when the firm became a

limited liability company A limited liability company (LLC for short) is the US-specific form of a private limited company. It is a business structure that can combine the pass-through taxation of a partnership or sole proprietorship with the limited liability ...

and was the chairman from 1923 to 1941. During the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...

he was Director of the Welfare Department at the

Ministry of Munitions The Minister of Munitions was a British government position created during the First World War to oversee and co-ordinate the production and distribution of munitions for the war effort. The position was created in response to the Shell Crisis ...

, under the leadership of

David Lloyd George David Lloyd George, 1st Earl Lloyd-George of Dwyfor, (17 January 1863 – 26 March 1945) was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1916 to 1922. He was a Liberal Party (United Kingdom), Liberal Party politician from Wales, known for lea ...

. In 1897 he married Lydia Potter (1868/9–1944), daughter of Edwin Potter, an engineer; they had four sons and one daughter. After his wife died, he lived in a wing of Former Prime Minister, Benjamin Disraeli's old house, Hughenden Manor, where he died after a

heart attack A myocardial infarction (MI), commonly known as a heart attack, occurs when blood flow decreases or stops to the coronary artery of the heart, causing damage to the heart muscle. The most common symptom is chest pain or discomfort which ma ...

in 1954. He was 83 years old.

Work

First York study (1899)

Rowntree investigated poverty in

, inspired by the work of his father Joseph Rowntree and the work of Charles Booth in London. He carried out a comprehensive survey into the living conditions of the poor in York during which investigators visited every working class household. This amounted to the detailed study of 11,560 families or 46,754 individuals. The results of this study were published in 1901 in his book ''

Poverty, A Study of Town Life ''Poverty, A Study of Town Life'' is the first book by Seebohm Rowntree, a sociological researcher, social reformer and industrialist, published in 1901. The study, widely considered a seminal work of sociology, details Rowntree's investigation ...

''. In Rowntree's work, he surveyed rich families in York and drew a poverty line in terms of a minimum weekly sum of money "necessary to enable families... to secure the necessaries of a healthy life" (quoted in Coates and Silburn, 1970). The money needed for this subsistence level of existence covered fuel and light, rent, food, clothing, household and personal items, adjusted according to family size. He determined this level using social scientific methods which had not been applied to the study of poverty before. For example, he consulted leading

nutritionist A nutritionist is a person who advises others on matters of food and nutrition and their impacts on health. Some people specialize in particular areas, such as sports nutrition, public health, or animal nutrition, among other disciplines. In many ...

s of the period to discover the minimum

calorific The calorie is a unit of energy. For historical reasons, two main definitions of "calorie" are in wide use. The large calorie, food calorie, or kilogram calorie was originally defined as the amount of heat needed to raise the temperature of on ...

intake and nutritional balance necessary before people got ill or lost weight. He then surveyed the prices of food in York to find the cheapest prices in the area for purchasing the food required by this minimum diet and used this information to set his poverty line. According to this measure, 27.84 percent of the total population of York lived below the poverty line. This result corresponded with that from Charles Booth's study of poverty in London and so challenged the view, commonly held at the time, that abject poverty was a problem particular to London and was not widespread in the rest of

Britain Britain most often refers to: * The United Kingdom, a sovereign state in Europe comprising the island of Great Britain, the north-eastern part of the island of Ireland and many smaller islands * Great Britain, the largest island in the United King ...

. He placed those below his poverty line into two groups depending on the reason for their poverty. Those in

primary poverty Poverty is the state of having few material possessions or little

income

did not have enough income to meet the expenditure necessary for their basic needs. Those classed as in secondary poverty had high enough income to meet basic needs but this money was being spent elsewhere so they were unable to then afford the necessities of life. Setting a primary poverty line for which " penditure needful for the development of the mortal, moral and social sides of human nature will not be taken into account'' (136) did not mean that he did not recognise the non-subsistence need of the working class. Rather, he wished to measure a type of poverty that could not be reduced simply by greater "thrift", so as to cast off the contemporary social myth about poverty as one's own fault. Ironically, this primary poverty line also helped many manufactures to set the lowest possible minimum wage, which engendered many criticism toward him. In analysing the results of the investigation he found that people at certain stages of life, for example in old age and early childhood, were more likely to be in abject poverty, living below the poverty line, than at other stages of life. From this he formulated the idea of the poverty cycle in which some people moved in and out of absolute poverty during their lives. This idea of poverty circle captured important longitudinal aspects of poverty that were cited later in many other researches.

Second York study (1936)

Rowntree conducted a further study of poverty in York in 1936 under the title '' Poverty and Progress''. This was based largely on a similar research method as his earlier study and found absolute poverty among the working class in York had decreased by 50% since his first study. However, as he changed his definition of the poverty line, and so the measure of absolute poverty, it is not a direct comparison from his earlier study. In this study he included allowances for some items which were not strictly necessary for survival, these included newspapers, books, radios, beer, tobacco, holidays, and presents. His results showed that the causes of poverty had changed considerably in a few decades. In the 1890s, the major reason for

primary poverty Poverty is the state of having few material possessions or little

income

was low wages, 52%, whereas in the 1930s unemployment accounted for 44.53% and low wages only 10%. Despite the inclusion of the extra items, he found that the percentage of his sample population in poverty had dropped to 18 per cent in 1936 and to 1.5 per cent in 1950.

Third York study (1951)

Rowntree published a third study of York's poverty in 1951 under the title '' Poverty and the Welfare State'' which was produced in collaboration with his research assistant G. R. Lavers. Unlike his other studies of York a sampling technique was used rather than a comprehensive survey, as he had primarily tested its viability in his second York study, though he did not adopt it in the previous time. By the 1950s, it appeared that absolute poverty was a minor problem although poverty did remain, for example among the elderly, but it was believed that increased welfare benefits would soon eradicate this lingering poverty. The conquest of poverty was put down to an expanding economy as the 1950s were the years of the 'affluent society', to government policies of

full employment Full employment is a situation in which there is no cyclical or deficient-demand unemployment. Full employment does not entail the disappearance of all unemployment, as other kinds of unemployment, namely structural and frictional, may remain. F ...

, and to the success of the

welfare state A welfare state is a form of government in which the state (or a well-established network of social institutions) protects and promotes the economic and social well-being of its citizens, based upon the principles of equal opportunity, equita ...

. It was widely believed that the operation of the welfare state had redistributed wealth from rich to poor and significantly raised working class living standards.

Other writings

urged Rowntree to write on rural living conditions in Britain: '' The Land'' (1913) and ''How the Labourer Lives'' (1913) looked at the living conditions of farming families. Rowntree argued that an increase in landholdings would make agriculture more productive. His work ''The Human Needs of Labour'' (1918) argued for family allowances and a national

minimum wage A minimum wage is the lowest remuneration that employers can legally pay their employees—the price floor below which employees may not sell their labor. Most countries had introduced minimum wage legislation by the end of the 20th century. B ...

, and in ''The Human Factor in Business'', Rowntree argued that business owners should adopt more democratic practices like those at his own factory rather than more autocratic leadership styles. He expressed his conviction of the possibility of establishing a close-knit community including both the management and the workers. In the study of his later period, ''English Life and Leisure: A Social Study'' (1951), he inquired into the ways people spent their relative, newly-found leisure and income; but this work suffered more conceptual difficulties than his former works.

Influence

Liberal reforms

Rowntree was a supporter of the

Liberal Party The Liberal Party is any of many political parties around the world. The meaning of ''liberal'' varies around the world, ranging from liberal conservatism on the right to social liberalism on the left. __TOC__ Active liberal parties This is a li ...

and hoped that his work would influence Liberal politicians. Rowntree became close friends with

in 1907 after the two men met when Lloyd George was serving as President of the

Board of Trade The Board of Trade is a British government body concerned with commerce and industry, currently within the Department for International Trade. Its full title is The Lords of the Committee of the Privy Council appointed for the consideration of ...

. The influence of Rowntree can be seen in the

Liberal reforms The Liberal welfare reforms (1906–1914) were a series of acts of social legislation passed by the Liberal Party after the 1906 general election. They represent the emergence of the modern welfare state in the United Kingdom. The reforms demons ...

passed by the Liberals when in power. He was a member of the Liberal Industrial Inquiry which published ''

Britain's Industrial Future ''Britain's Industrial Future'', commonly known as the Yellow Book, was the report of the British Liberal Party's Industrial Inquiry of 1928. Background The British economy had been in a depressed state since the end of the boom that had occurred ...

'', better known as the ''Yellow Book'', in 1928. In 1930 he co-wrote, with Lloyd George and Philip Kerr, the Liberal Party's plan ''How to Tackle Unemployment''. In June 1936 he was elected to serve on the Liberal Party Council.

Labour Party

''Poverty and Progress'' impacted on the policies of the post-war Labour government and ''Poverty and the Welfare State'' was used in a 1951 Labour party election manifesto headed Ending Poverty although this was without his knowledge.

Industrialist and philanthropist

Seebohm and the Rowntree's firm broke new ground in terms of industrial relations, welfare and management.

Lyndall Urwick Lyndall Fownes Urwick (3 March 1891 – 5 December 1983) was a British management consultant and business thinker. He is recognised for integrating the ideas of earlier theorists like Henri Fayol into a comprehensive theory of management admi ...

describes him as "the British management movement's greatest pioneer" in his book Golden Book of Management. Rowntree's Quaker upbringing influenced his business practice; he believed that the existence of companies which paid low wages was bad for the "nation's economy and humanity". "More a philanthropist than a capitalist", he introduced various reforms in the working condition of the workers: the establishment of the eight-hour day in 1896, a pension scheme in 1906, a five-day work week and work councils in 1919, the establishment of a psychology department in 1922, and a profit-sharing plan in 1923. Rowntree also personally involved in two major conciliation efforts following strikes in 1919 and 1926. In 1947 when the British Institute of Management was created he became an Honorary Founder Member and in 1952 the first English person to become an

Honorary Fellow Honorary titles (professor, reader, lecturer) in academia may be conferred on persons in recognition of contributions by a non-employee or by an employee beyond regular duties. This practice primarily exists in the UK and Germany, as well as in ...

of the institute.

Rowntree's Cocoa Works

The Rowntree Cocoa Works was a site of great scientific investigation and became internationally known as such. Rowntree was a great believer in trained specialists, and employed many at the Cocoa Works. They included

Oliver Sheldon Oliver Sheldon (1894–1951) was a director of the Rowntree's in York, England. He wrote on principles of public and business administration in the 1920s. Life Oliver Sheldon was born on 13 July 1894. He was educated at King's College Schoo ...

and Dr Clarence Northcott. The Works was a corporate member of the Taylor Society and was admired by its President

Henry S. Dennison Henry Sturgis Dennison (March 4, 1877 – February 29, 1952)Morgen Witzel (2005). ''Encyclopedia of History of American Management.'' p. 116 was an American progressive business man, president and owner of Dennison Manufacturing Co. Paper Box Fac ...

. Seebohm oversaw the formation of an industrial psychology department in 1922 which pioneered the use of

psychological Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Psychology includes the study of conscious and unconscious phenomena, including feelings and thoughts. It is an academic discipline of immense scope, crossing the boundaries bet ...

recruitment tests in British industry. Employing psychologist Victor Moorrees who developed a new test, the form board selection test, to ascertain how well prospective employees would be able to fit chocolates into their box. He was also heavily involved in the National Institute of Industrial Psychology serving on its executive committee from its foundation in 1921, as chairman from 1940 to 1947, until his resignation in 1949.Doyle, D.C., 'Aspects of the Institutionalisation of British Psychology: the National Institute of Industrial Psychology, 1921-1939' (PhD thesis, Manchester University, 1979).

Bibliography

*''

'' (1901) *''Betting & Gambling: A National Evil'' (1905) *''Land and Labour, Lessons from Belgium'' (1910) *''Unemployment, A Social Study'' by Rowntree and Bruno Lasker (1911) *'' The Land'' (1913) *''How the Labourer Lives, A Study of the Rural Labour Problem'' by Rowntree and May Kendall (1913) *'' How far it is possible to provide Satisfactory Houses for the Working Classes at rents which they can afford to pay'', Warburton lecture, 1914 *''Lectures on Housing'' by Rowntree and A. C. Pigou (1914) *''The Way to Industrial Peace and the Problem of Unemployment'' (1914) *''The Human Needs of Labour'' (1918)
''The Human Factor in Business''
(1921) *''The responsibility of Women Workers for Dependants'' by Rowntree and Frank Stuart (1921) *''Industrial Unrest, A way Out'' (1922) *''How to Tackle Unemployment'' (with

and the Marquess of Lothian), 1930 *''Poverty and Progress'' (1941) *''Poverty and the Welfare State'' by Rowntree and G. R. Lavers (1951) *''English Life and Leisure: A Social Study'' by Rowntree and G. R. Lavers (1951)

References

External links

*
Benjamin Seebohm Rowntree
at

Spartacus Educational Spartacus Educational is a free online encyclopedia with essays and other educational material on a wide variety of historical subjects principally British history from 1700 and the history of the United States. Based in the United Kingdom, Spart ...

Our Heritage, The Joseph Rowntree Foundation
* ttp://www.rowntreesociety.org.uk The Rowntree Society {{DEFAULTSORT:Rowntree, Benjamin Seebohm People educated at Bootham School English Quakers British sociologists English philanthropists English businesspeople 1871 births 1954 deaths Seebohm Housing reformers British reformers Liberal Party (UK) politicians People from York