Quotations
from Joseph Rowntree
"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. For example, it is much easier to obtain funds for the famine-stricken people in
"…The Soup Kitchen in
"In connection with Religious, Political and Social work, it is to be remembered that there may be no better way of advancing the objects one has at heart than to strengthen the hands of those who are effectively doing the work that needs to be done. Not unfrequently one hears of persons doing excellent work whose service is cramped, or who are in danger of breaking down through anxiety about the means of living. It would be quite in accordance with my wish that cases of this kind be assisted…."
“I hope that … these trusts may be living bodies, free to adapt themselves to the ever-changing necessities of the nation … ”
“If the enormous volume of the philanthropy of the present day were wisely directed it would, I believe, in the course of a few years change the face of England.”
“I do not want to establish communities bearing the stamp of charity but rather of rightly ordered and self-governing communities.”
“Every Social writer knows the supreme importance of questions connected with the holding and taxation of land, but for one person who attempts to master this question there are probably thousands who devote their time and strength to relieving poverty and its accompanying evils. … Such aspects of [the Land question] as the nationalisation of land, or the taxation of land values, or the appropriation of the unearned increment – all needs a treatment far more thorough than they have yet received.”
from Seebohm Rowntree
"[A family is counted as poor if their] … total earnings are insufficient to obtain the minimum necessities of merely physical efficiency" 1899
"Nations, like individuals, often tend to dwell on causes of irritation and not on their blessings, for the latter are usually taken for granted." From English Life and Leisure by B Seebohm Rowntree and G.R. Lavers.
about Seebohm Rowntree
"It is quite evident from the figures which he adduces that the American labourer is a stronger, larger, healthier, better fed, and consequently more efficient animal than a large proportion of our population, and this is surely a fact which our unbridled Imperialists, who have no thought but to pile up armaments, taxation and territory, should not lose sight of. For my own part, I see little glory in an Empire which can rule the waves and is unable to flush its sewers." Winston Churchill, in December 1901, writing to a friend after he had been reading Poverty - A Study of Town Life
"I have been reading a book which has fairly made my hair stand on end, written by a Mr Rowntree who deals with poverty in the town of York" Winston Churchill, speaking to an audience in Blackpool, 1902.
"In the organisation of the welfare brands of our new factories we had the valuable direction of Mr Seebohm Rowntree, who is not only a highly successful man of business but a student of social conditions of worldwide fame... Mr Rowntree is well known not only as a great employer of labour, but as one of the foremost successful pioneers in the development of improved conditions in his works." Lloyd George, War Memoirs, Vol 1