ABSTRACT
Seebohm Rowntree and William Sutton both took steps to ensure that their considerable business wealth would be applied to solving the problem of the poor. By his will of 1894, William Sutton left almost his entire fortune of some £2 million pounds to provide housing for 'the poor'. In 1904, Seebohm Rowntree 'cordially' agreed to forgo a considerable part of his inheritance so that half of his father's property could be set aside to fund three family truststhe Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust, the Joseph Rowntree Social Service Trust andtheJosephRowntree VillageTrust(Briggs, 1961). Yet Rowntreeand Sutton's zeal for solving the problem of poverty arose from fundamentally different motives: their approaches and their respective wider social and political influence also contrasted strongly. In this paper William Sutton's understanding of poverty is compared with that of Seebohm Rowntree and the significance of Sutton's bequest for the Trust that was created following his death in 1900 is explored. The second part of the paper contains an analysis of the Trust's extensive surviving tenants' registers for the period 1909-1939 and discusses how far the objective of housing the 'poor' was achieved. 1 The paper concludes with an assessment of the impact of the William Sutton Trust (then
Seebohm Rowntree, one might almost say, was born to charitable work while William Sutton was born to work. Whereas Rowntree was the third generation of a thriving Quaker business family, Sutton had only tenuous family links with the carrying and distilling business sectors that he was to exploit so successfully.2 Rowntree's ability to detach himself from the family business fmancially and personally enabled him to continue his education to University level, while Sutton's formal education ended when he left the City of London School in 1850 aged about 14. While Rowntree's teenage years were spent learning the scientific analytical methods that he was to apply to his study of poverty, the orphaned Sutton was already exploiting his business acumen. Before 1860 he had set up a carrying business in the basement of the City of London inn once run by his maternal grandmother. Joseph Rowntree conveyed to his son, Seebohm, the importance of social Christianity, of trusteeship in business, and of social investigation as the basis for philanthropy. Seebohmhad before him a family tradition of contributions to local schools, hospitals and libraries. In business and in social refonn, the Rowntrees' aim was to run their enterprises on model, well-conducted lines on the basis of periodic and structured reviews. This relative detachment from business so as to integrate financial, social and moral concerns into entrepreneurial duty played no part in the approach ofWilliam Sutton. Perhaps his scattered investments and carrying empire coupled with his capital intensive brewing and distilling works did not lend themselves to such a vision as easily as the Rowntrees' self-contained model factory outside York. Sutton was undoubtedly astute in identifying business opportunities offered by industrial and urban growth in the UK and abroad. He operated through intense personal involvement, whilst treating his employees straightforwardly but distantly. Unlike Rowntree, he could not apply intellectual detachment, social analysis nor moral and religious concerns to shape his approach to business or to the problem of the poor. 3
The Rowntree production of cocoa - originally promoted as a temperance drink - contrasted with Sutton's ownership of the gin, whisky and brandy distillery, Sutton, Carden and Co. in Finsbury and the New London Brewery
in Kennington. Neither of these companies produced branded drink, but supplied liquor for general consumption in inns, hotels and pubs, providing the raw material included by Seebohm Rowntree in his calculation of the 'national drink bill' (Briggs, 1961). Quakerism lay behind Seebohm's commitment to temperance and his religious upbringing and teaching were the basis for his business and philanthropic role. Sutton appears to have had no religious beliefs and even in his funeral notice, there is no indication of any religious rites.4 Not for this unpractised philanthropist were the personal contact and individual interest in employees that typified the Rowntrees. Sutton's employees found him terse, distant and abrupt - a man who gave specific instructions that he was not to be acknowledged outside his business premises. 5 Where Seebohm Rowntree was motivated by family loyalty and religious conviction, Sutton appears to have been driven by family disagreement and his 'one great idea'- to prevent the problems of poverty by providing houses. He operated without consultation, accurate investigation or detailed planning and evaluation. A simple generalisation, vouchsafed to his brother and business associate, appears to have sufficed in Sutton's philanthropy.
