Is the Rowntree legacy tainted?

In many ways, he was far ahead of his time. He set up one of the first-ever occupational pension schemes for employees at his chocolate factory, and provided workers with a library, free education, a social welfare officer, a doctor and a dentist.

He bequeathed Rowntree Park to the people of York. And in 1902, he bought 150 acres of land at New Earswick to develop a model village providing decent housing for low-income families. Two years later, in 1904, he gave half of his wealth to set up three charitable trusts, the descendants of which still bear his name today. In setting aside the money, he told his children: "You are not going to get everything."

Joseph Rowntree (front, 3rd from left) at the opening of Rowntree Park on July 16, 1921. Puicture: Explore York

His passionate concerns about poverty and injustice ring out in a speech he gave to York City Council in 1911, when he was made an honorary freeman of the city.

Describing the desperation of many working class York families of the day, he said: "The hopelessness, the heart-breaking misery of those who are eager to work but cannot find it, whose homes are broken up, who are unable to give to their children the shelter and the care they need, who feel that whatever effort is put forth is likely to end in failure - this condition saps the strength and is altogether evil."

His concerns did not stop with the poor of his own country. In his founding memorandum for those three charitable trusts set up in 1904, he also described slavery as one of ‘the great scourges of humanity’.

It is, therefore, deeply unsettling that new research has revealed that the chocolate factory of which he was the head may well have profited from slavery and forced or indentured labour.

Research by charity The Rowntree Society, prompted partly by the Black Lives Matter movement, has unearthed shocking evidence of links between the Rowntree chocolate company and slavery or indentured labour extending from the 1820s right through to the early years of the 1900s.

A 1906 view of Rowntree’s Tanners Moat and North Street factories

The Society has stressed that it found no evidence that Rowntree's directly owned or traded in slaves.

But it said the original Rowntree grocery business set up by Joseph Rowntree Senior in 1822 sold 'commodities of empire' which were likely to have been produced by 'enslaved or unfree workers'.

Other findings included that:

• Rowntree benefited from colonial indenture, a system of bonded labour developed in the 1820s following the end of the slave trade in which European nations recruited people from India and Southeast Asia to work on plantations in the Caribbean and West Africa. In the 1890s, Rowntree's bought several plantations in the British West Indies. 'Further research is required to understand the full extent to which the use of indentured workers facilitated the growth of the Rowntree businesses between 1822 and 1920', the Society says.
• In the early Twentieth century Rowntree's, like other Quaker chocolate manufacturers, bought cocoa and other goods produced by African slaves in the West African islands of São Tomé and Príncipe.

Perhaps most shockingly of all, because most recent, the Rowntree Society research also found evidence of alleged racial discrimination at Wilson Rowntree, Rowntree Mackintosh’s fully owned subsidiary, in Apartheid South Africa. "In the early 1980s, Wilson Rowntree used tactics including summary dismissal and forced unemployment to suppress unrest among its black work force," the Society says.

The research has sparked apologies and soul searching from the four trusts - The Joseph Rowntree Foundation, Housing Trust, Charitable Trust and Reform Trust - which owe their existence to that 1904 endowment - and which funded the Rowntree Society research.

They say they are 'deeply sorry that the origins of our endowment have roots in shameful practices that caused deep suffering and created enduring harms', and say they are 'committed to ... learning from every part of our history'.

But what does this all mean for the Rowntree legacy? Is it tainted? And what lessons can we learn about continuing racism and discrimination in modern-day Britain?

Members of the Rwntree family in May 1923. Left to right: J.S. Rowntree, Seebohm Rowntree, Joseph Rowntree, Arnold S. Rowntree, and Oscar F. Rowntree. Picture: Explore York

York Central MP Rachael Maskell has welcomed the Rowntree Society research as a 'painful but positive step' in better understanding the 'gross errors of the past' - and also the continuing extent of racism and discrimination in Britain today.

But she stressed it was just a first step. And she called on other organisations and public bodies to go through a similar process of examining not only their past, but also their present. "There has to be a root and branch approach," she said. "There is a real hierarchy of discrimination still, with black and ethnic minority people in lower paid jobs."

There are also serious questions for York itself to answer about why 'we do not recognise the diversity of our city in all sorts of ways', she added.

The York Racial Equality Network (YREN) has gone out of its way to praise the Rowntree Society for deciding to research the company's links to slavery, colonialism and apartheid.

It has also acknowledged that the Quaker Rowntree family were 'among the first white people to denounce slavery, identifying that slavery and/or involvement with the slave trade had to be faced as a leading moral issue within their own religious communities'

YREN has also praised the chocolate company's historic ethos of helping people out of poverty. "We must not lose sight of the fact that this organisation has done countless good deeds to alleviate distress in the lives of a great many people,” YREN volunteer Canon Linda Ali said.

But she added that much of this good work took place in an economic culture where 'improvements in the health and living conditions of British people was achieved at the expense of other nations'.

"Many companies and organisations were involved in, and profited from, this aspect of British history, including Quakers, the Church of England, the Catholic church and a great many British aristocrats and merchants," she said.

The Rowntree Society itself has pledged that, with support and funding from the Joseph Rowntree trusts, it will continue its research.

"If we are to continue to be inspired by Joseph Rowntree’s...religious, political and social work ...then it is clear that we need to confront uncomfortable questions about the Rowntree family and company’s participation in colonialism and racialised exploitative working practices," it says.

It says that there are a number of questions that remain to be answered, including:

• Is there any other evidence to indicate what the Rowntree family and their associates at the Rowntree businesses thought about slavery and indentured labour?
• What were the attitudes of the Rowntree family towards race?
• To what extent was the Quaker Rowntree family involved in antislavery campaigns? How did they balance concerns about slavery with their commercial interests?
• What impact did the Rowntree company have on the lives of people of colour within the colonial global economy and in its aftermath?
• Who were the people of Black and Asian heritage working for Rowntree’s? What were their experiences?

"We recognise the lasting damage inflicted by the colonial global economy in countries where the Rowntree businesses operated and the effects of historic slavery and colonialism for people and communities of colour in Britain today," the Society said.

"History is not closed. Its legacies, and our understanding of those legacies, continue to shape the present, and it is only by reflecting critically on the past that we can learn and inform the future."

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation, Charitable Trust and Reform Trust have all pledged that they will continue to work with the Rowntree Society on investigating the chocolate company's past.

It has been been 'deeply uncomfortable to us to have to grapple with this part of our history', admitted Celia McKeon, the chief executive of the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust. But it is vital that we do so.

"We know that the exploitation of people in British colonialism contributed to patterns of racism... that many people in the UK still face today. That is why it is so important to engage with this history."

Once we do better understand our history, what should we do about it? Should we attempt to make reparation in some way?

"The commitment that we are making is to being guided by people of colour in the way that we respond to this history," Ms McKeon said.

And could there ever, in any circumstances, come a time when the Rowntree trusts might have to think the unthinkable and consider repudiating the Rowntree name?

"That is not part of the conversation we are having with trustees," said Paul Kissack, the group chief executive of both the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and Housing Trust.

"This is about grappling with our history. That history is more complex than we would want it to be. But I don't think you grapple with that by changing a name."