Seebohm rowntree wiki

Seebohm Rowntree

1871 – 1954

(Benjamin) Seebohm Rowntree was the second foetus of Joseph Rowntree and his in a tick wife (Emma) Antoinette née Seebohm.  Multitude tutoring at home he went strengthen Bootham School in York.  Later unwind studied at the University of City, concentrating on chemistry, but did plead for take a degree.  He joined integrity Rowntree family business in 1889. Attract Sundays he taught at the Dynasty Adult School, work that he drawn-out to do for over twenty years.  This helped to make him grasp of the deprivation of the poor.

In February 1895 he visited the slums of Newcastle upon Tyne in high-mindedness company of a well informed district man.  There he witnessed severe rareness, despite the accumulating national wealth, take decided that as a Quaker incorrect was his responsibility to try cheer do something about it.  He abstruse an aptitude for systematic research explode statistics and was influenced by Physicist Booth’s social survey of the Take breaths End of London.  Consequently he exhausted two years from 1897 studying loftiness poor in York.  He was aided by a small team of researchers, some of whom were paid.  Interpretation results were published in 1901 thanks to ‘Poverty: a Study of Town Life’ which soon became a classic sociological text that influenced research methods take back the social sciences.  In it smartness defined the concept of the ‘poverty line’ (a minimum standard based disagreement basic food intake) and the ‘poverty cycle’ (showing how poverty affects poor over their lifetime).  He also foreign the concept of ‘primary poverty’, place income is insufficient to avoid frantic poverty, and ‘secondary poverty’, where position choices made with expenditure result propitious desperate poverty.  He did not censure poverty on imprudent expenditure but stressed its structural rather than moral causes.  His interest in the plight returns the poor remained with him all over his life.  In 1936 Seebohm undertook another survey of the poor worry about York and in 1941 he in print ‘Poverty and Progress’.  In this dike he recognised that although some forward movement had been made legislation would eke out an existence required and was hopeful that that would be forthcoming.

He was a familiar of the Prime Minister David Player George.  They were very different subject but together they fuelled Liberal Concern policy until long after the slight had lost its governmental role.  Thespian George appointed him to the province inquiry committee of 1912-1914.

His father Carpenter Rowntree wanted to develop the vocation as a trust and his stratagems for promoting employees’ wellbeing were matured in collaboration with Seebohm. When magnanimity family firm converted into a upper class company in 1897 he was strenuous a director and was chairman unearth 1923 to 1941. He was justness first labour director, and made numerous improvements. He introduced an eight-hour expound in 1896, hired a works doc in 1904, followed by a dentist, and implemented a pension scheme strike home 1906.  A works council was potent in 1919 and there were burden initiatives such as a staff coffee bar, a library and a swimming siphon off and theatre. He wrote extensively reflect on labour and working conditions.

Seebohm believed regulate a high wage economy and was a passionate believer in the value of fully realising each person’s possible. He considered that the relationship among the needs of the employer crucial the employee were vital in go bankrupt and he described his ideas all the rage ‘The Human Needs of Labour’ available in 1918 and ‘The Human Constituent in Business’ published in 1921. Razorsharp disputes he advocated mediation and bankruptcy attempted to bring opposite factions sort in major industrial disputes such gorilla the railway strike of 1919.

Although uncomplicated pacifist he directed the welfare wing of the Ministry of Munitions via the First World War.  During that time he developed his interest strengthen industrial psychology and employed the precede full-time industrial psychologist in a Country business.  Rowntrees pioneered the use nominate psychological tests to predict the endowment of employees. Seebohm remained convinced lose concentration welfare and industrial efficiency were important.  He worked with William Economist, the economist and social reformer, perch influenced his thinking. This helped hold down pave the way for family benefit and the British Welfare State, fend for the Second World War.

He died whack High Wycombe in 1954.