Monday, February 27, 2006

Great Briton: Joseph Rowntree (1836-1925)

Britain has a long history of succesful, radical philanthropists. In the news today is Joseph Rowntree, founder of the Rowntree confectionary company, now, unfortunately, part of Nestlé:
In 1904, aged 68, Joseph Rowntree endowed the three Joseph Rowntree Trusts, giving “about one-half of my property to [their] establishment.” He believed the way to remedy the injustices of the world was not to relieve their ill-effects, but to strike at their roots. This would be the trusts’ work.
Got lots of money? Give it away to make the world a better place. The trusts all have a long history of reports, investigations and campaigns, nice to see them still going and doing his memory proud.

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4 comments:

Laban said...

The JRF are responsible for some of the most crappy and slanted 'research' that ever argued for more money to be spent on outreach workers and anti-racist five-a-day smoking cessation coordinators.

If Rowntree were alive today, he would be turning in his grave.

Gareth said...

I'll second that, the Joseph Roundtree Foundation aren't fit to carry his name.

MatGB said...

To be 100% honest, until yesterday, I didn't know there were three separate trusts.

I guess with any organisation with a remit, sometimes the remit gets misused or the research gives the 'wrong' answer. Not knowing of specific examples can't comment; anyone care to point me at some?

Anonymous said...

This is funny, I have been intending to do some research and a post on the foundation, I have noticed several reports that seem slanted to me, yet the foundation seems to have a good name.