How 100 years after his death we can all still take inspiration from Joseph Rowntree - Paul Kissack

For Joseph, the answer did not lie in traditional charity. As he famously declared, “much of 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 the underlying causes”.

Rowntree made it his life’s work to focus on those ‘underlying causes’, with bold solutions that improved the conditions of ordinary people. The garden village of New Earswick in York stands today as evidence of his commitment to affordable, high-quality housing for workers. Innovative practices in his own factories paved the way for new approaches to employment relations and pensions.

We are taught that the British welfare state was invented after the Second World War. It wasn’t. It was built piece by piece over decades through the innovative work of pioneers like Rowntree. Policies enacted in Westminster in the early twentieth century took inspiration from the models pioneered by Rowntree and others, codified in cutting-edge social legislation that redefined the role of the state.

While these innovations fell far short of what was necessary to end poverty for good, they provided evidence of a radical imagination and action to strive for a better world gathering momentum. For all the darkness and disruption of his age, in Rowntree’s time there was always a strong sense of hope and a belief in progress.

Roll forward 100 years and where have we got to? Once again we see extraordinary inequalities of wealth, with assets and power concentrating into fewer hands while capital markets move unimaginably large sums of money globally. At the same time, just as in Rowntree’s era, it’s often those who benefit from and defend this inequality who are heard the loudest.

Ordinary families in the UK have seen growing risk pushed their way as the state has retreated. The result is widespread, deepening economic insecurity – where people can work harder than ever but feel that they cannot plan for their future - and rising levels of poverty and hardship. Our own UK Poverty report last month found 14 million people living in poverty across the UK, nearly one in three children and growing levels of destitution.

Unlike Rowntree’s time, too often our politics today seems beset by a crisis of imagination and lack of confidence in a better future. A profound sense of fatalism and helplessness prevails instead.

Increasingly, in despair, people turn to the false and easy answers of demagogues. At the Joseph Rowntree Foundation we look to pierce that fog of fatalism – reminding ourselves and our Government of the power to shape the world anew, with bold proposals for change.

But Joseph didn’t just advocate for change – he built it. Today at JRF we look beyond the traditional power centres towards the work of pioneers who are demonstrating, often quietly and thanklessly, what the economy of the future might look like.

Our place-based work in York and beyond seeks to emulate the Rowntree philosophy of bold, innovative action to solve the issues of the day, helping to both build connections between those working towards a better world and create less hostile conditions for their work.

Meanwhile, through the Joseph Rowntree Housing Trust we proudly continue to support and grow the communities our founder nurtured, while we strive to build hundreds more desperately needed affordable homes in the region - the bedrock of stable and secure lives.

History offers no simple or easy lessons. Recent research by the Rowntree Society has found evidence of exploitation and use of enslaved people’s labour as part of Rowntree supply chains – part of our historical legacy we have a responsibility to confront.

At the same time, the context we face today includes challenges unimaginable in Joseph’s time – from the emergence of Artificial Intelligence, to the climate emergency.

And yet, the life of Joseph Rowntree provides inspiration, 100 years on, as we face our own moment of challenge. Individuals from all generations in the North and further afield have the lesson of Rowntree’s life, to know that the world as we find it, is not the world as it must be.

Paul Kissack is the chief executive of Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF).