Happy 150th to York's 'Einstein of the welfare state'

He was the second son of Joseph Rowntree, and was educated first privately and then from the age of 10 at Bootham School.

He studied chemistry at Owen's College, Manchester before joining the family firm in 1889, where he laid the foundations of the firm's first chemistry department.

He became the company’s first Labour Director in 1897 and was the chairman from 1923 to 1941. On Sundays he taught at the York Adult School, work that he continued to do for over twenty years. This helped to make him aware of the deprivation of the poor.

In 1897 he married Lydia Potter (1869–1944), daughter of Edwin Potter, a civil engineer; they had four sons and one daughter. After his wife died, he retired to live in a wing of former Prime Minister, Benjamin Disraeli's old house, Hughenden Manor, in Buckinghamshire, where he died after a heart attack in 1954. He was 83 years old.

During the First World War he was Director of the Welfare Department at the Ministry of Munitions, under the leadership of David Lloyd George.

Poverty and the First Living Wage

In February 1895 Seebohm visited the slums of Newcastle upon Tyne. There he witnessed severe poverty, despite the accumulating national wealth, and decided that as a Quaker it was his responsibility to try to do something about it.

He had an aptitude for systematic research and statistics and was influenced by Charles Booth’s social survey of the East End of London. Consequently he spent two years from 1897 studying the poverty in York and 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.

Seebohm 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'.

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 not previously applied to the study of poverty.

For example, he consulted leading nutritionists to discover the minimum calorific 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 his minimum diet and used this information to set his poverty line.

According to this measure, 28 per cent of the total population of York lived below the poverty line.

Seebohm placed those below his poverty line into two groups. Those in primary poverty 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.

Seebohm conducted a further study of poverty in York in 1936. This found absolute poverty among the working class in York had decreased by 50 per cent since his first study.

His results showed that the causes of poverty had changed considerably in a few decades. It had been predominantly insufficient income but was now more likely to be caused by unemployment.

Fair Working Conditions and National Minimum Wage

Seebohm’s work 'The Human Needs of Labour' (1918) argued for family allowances (introduced in 1946 and changed to Child Benefit in 1975) and a national minimum wage (introduced in 1998 – 80 years later), and in 'The Human Factor in Business', he 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.

Seebohm and the Rowntree & Company board broke new ground in terms of industrial relations, welfare and management.

At his behest, and with his father Joseph’s full support, the company introduced various reforms on the working condition of workers. The establishment of an eight-hour day in 1896, employment of a works doctor in 1904 (followed soon after by a dentist), 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 are all testament to his innovation and Quaker values.

Other facilities such as a swimming pool (1908) and Joseph Rowntree Theatre (1935) were built, and night classes, sports and social clubs, even a prize-winning brass band, were all created for the benefit of not only the Rowntree workforce, but also the wider community.

Government Influence

Seebohm was a supporter of the Liberal Party and became close friends with David Lloyd George in 1907 after the two men met when Lloyd George was serving as President of the Board of Trade.

His influence can be seen in the reforms passed by the Liberals when in power. He was also a member of the Liberal Industrial Inquiry and contributed to 'Britain's Industrial Future', better known as the 'Yellow Book', in 1928. Lloyd George's biographer John Campbell, writing in 1977, described this as the 'most far-sighted policy document produced by any party between the wars''.

In 1930 Seebohm also co-wrote, with Lloyd George and Philip Kerr, the Liberal Party's plan 'How to Tackle Unemployment'.

Seebohm Rowntree, rigth, with David Lloyd George. Picture: Joseph Rowntree Foundation/Borthwick Institute for Archives

Labour Party and the Creation of the Welfare State.

In the 1930s Seebohm carried out a second survey of York. In 'Progress and Poverty' (1941), Rowntree argued that the city had experienced a fifty per cent reduction in poverty since his first study. He also pointed out that in the 1930s the main cause of poverty was unemployment, whereas in the 1890s it had been low wages.

The conclusions of his report helped influence the policies of the post-war Labour Government. He was described, in an unattributed quote, as the 'Einstein of the Welfare State'.

Influence on the Arts

Seebohm Rowntree is significant in terms of the continuation and viability of the Theatre Royal in York and the creation of the body that runs it, the York Citizens’ Theatre Trust.

As the chairman of Rowntree and Company, he was also responsible for the building of a completely new theatre, the one that we know today as the Joseph Rowntree Theatre, named after his father.

Opened in 1935, it can claim to be unique, in being the only purpose-built proscenium theatre in the world founded and supported by a Quaker family. It was provided chiefly but not solely for Rowntrees’ factory workers and their families, along with a whole range of other social, cultural, educational and sporting provision.

With few changes and alterations, the Joseph Rowntree Theatre remains a recognisably typical art deco building, still providing similar artistic opportunities for a wide selection of local community groups and audiences.

The Joseph Rowntree Theatre