Another hugely enjoyable book by Paul Chrystal! The History of sweets focussed on sweets and chocolates, but this book is specifically about the Rowntree family of York and how they went from being grocers to building a world famous chocolate empire. Interestingly, as a Quaker, Joseph Rowntree was very reluctant to advertise, something his competitors took advantage of, but he still succeeded. His idea of building a healthy model village to allow his workforce to inhabit better homes and to make education and leisure facilities available was a huge achievement. While the author can be quite fact heavy, it is all fascinating. The Family tree and timelines at the end are a really useful addition to clarify who's who. Thank you to Paul Chrystal, Pen & Sword and Net Galley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

An interesting read, a bit more focused on the people and personal aspects of the chocolate history of Rowntree and the likes of Nestle etc, some I knew, but there was plenty to keep me interested , it’s a great introduction to the history of cocoa and chocolate production and also suggests further reading, overall interesting and factual, but might be a bit too much of fact throwing for some, but I enjoyed it.

Thanks to netgalley and the publisher for a free copy for an honest opinion

Paul Chrystal’s new book, Rowntree’s: The Early History, comes hard on the heels of the same author’s History of Sweets. And it shows – several sections appear in both books, word for word. That’s NOT a major criticism – it’s still worthwhile getting both books because the duplication is a minor part of each book – but I was surprised when I spotted it. I haven’t read Chrystal’s other books about the Rowntrees, but a quick online check shows some the same paragraphs in both his 2013 book, The Rowntree Family of York, and this Early History book. Given that the two books are both about the same family firm, one would expect them to cover the same ground – and if your words were good enough last time round, why change them?

The book starts with a bang: it’s the evening of 1st June 1862 and Henry Rowntree is going to meet with the Tuke brothers the next day. Should he buy their cocoa and chocolate firm or not? His brothers John and Joseph had thought about it but were inclined against doing so. John and Joseph were partners in the Rowntree’s business but Henry wasn’t. This was his chance to run his own business and yes, he agreed to purchase the Tukes’ firm.

The next couple of chapters take us back to the real founding of the firm by Mary Tuke in the 1700s. Mary’s great-great-nephew, Samuel was a close friend of Joseph Rowntree senior. The families were also related by marriage. Joseph had started a grocery business and, as I mentioned above, took two of his three sons into partnership.

Their Quaker faith was of huge significance to the Rowntrees. Joseph senior was a councillor and an alderman of York, doing a lot of good work to improve the city. Henry was also a very good man – but a rotten businessman. He spent a lot of time and energy on social and educational events for the local adult school, making them interesting enough to draw people to these teetotal events, rather than to go to the pub. He was highly successful and also bought a newspaper, hoping to further the Liberal cause. Unfortunately, this took even more of his time and attention away from his business. His brother, Joseph junior stepped in to help injecting capital and bringing order to the chaos.

Sadly, Henry died when he was only 45 and Joseph had to take over the full-time running of the business. However, Joseph acknowledged Henry’s superior humanity and that may have influenced all the good things Joseph eventually did as the company grew. He created a staff pension fund two years before the state pension was introduced. He wanted to start a profit sharing scheme in 1907 but opposition delayed it until 1923. Rowntree’s gave employees a week’s paid holiday from 1918, nineteen years before it was obligatory. The company emulated Cadbury’s and built a village for workers – New Earswick - with sanitary well-built houses. Rowntree’s (the family or the company) have founded schools; donated land for a public park; built a public swimming pool. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation continues “working to solve poverty” as its website say. Note that “solve”, not “fight”. As Henry, Joseph and the others did, they target the causes of poverty in order to eliminate it for ever, rather than trying to alleviate the symptoms, e.g. with food banks.

I’m really glad I read this book and I felt humbled, reading what the individual Rowntree men achieved. However, there are long stretches that are general in nature rather than about the Rowntree’s. I did feel at times that some of this was padding. For example, it was good to include a chapter about Rowntree’s competitors, but why include Mars who, as Chrystal admits, didn’t establish their Slough factory until 1932? What relevance to the early history of Rowntree’s? Again, sections of this chapter appear word for word in The History of Sweets.

My thanks to the publishers for an advanced review copy of this wide ranging account of the formative years of the Rowntree’s confectionery manufacturers in York.

The chief protagonists are two brothers. Joseph gave up grocery to bail out his younger brother, Henry, who had bought an ailing cocoa works from the Tukes in 1862. The Tukes’ cocoa, chicory and chocolate firm had been started by Mary Tuke against all the odds in eighteenth century.

Nationally cocoa consumption increased tenfold between 1820 and 1900, while the population doubled, and this is the backdrop to the story told in this book. It is a mine of information and I enjoyed the read.

The effect of industrial development and more significantly the railways on York provides some context to the way the Rowntree, Terry and Craven businesses developed in that city.

Equally fascinating are the accounts of other chocolate manufacturers here and in France, Belgium and Switzerland. I found it very interesting how different manufacturers came to cocoa and chocolate. Terry was originally an apothecary and the health claims made for chocolate, be they for example about Cadbury’s full milk nutrition not long ago or Bovril and Oxo’s beefy cocoa in the past have only recently been superseded by modern concerns about sugar and fat.

By contrast Nestle came to chocolate from infant milk formula and the Mazawattee tea company arrived at cocoa because they knew about tea. Some of the information about the routine adulteration of food products in the nineteenth century makes quite gloriously disgusting reading.

There is also much to interest and entertain on coffee and chocolate houses through the ages with their social and political associations and plenty of intriguing odd facts too. For example, it seems Toblerone secured the first patent for a chocolate bar and it was authorised by one Albert Einstein in 1909.

Not being a great fan of Rowntree’s chocolate, I mainly associate them with fruit gums and pastilles, so I was interested to know that these treats from my childhood were invented by Claude Gaget and they were so successful that they paid for the expansion of Rowntree’s into their Haxby Road factory.

Naturally, the book also covers the philanthropic Quaker influence of the brothers and their father, notably through their charitable trusts, the building of the New Earswick Garden Village close to the Haxby Road factory and their lifelong commitment to non denominational adult schools. I had not previously understood their influence in the context of an influx of workers due to the railways and the Irish potato famine in the 1840s.

The book, of course, credits the brothers with many advances in employment practice even if it remained a tremendously paternalistic workplace. Unusually and accurately, it describes the Cadbury’s, Fry’s and Rowntree’s price agreements between 1872 and 1900 as those of a cartel, and it also records the extent to which they all spied on each other and other rivals and paid to lure knowledgeable staff away to divulge trade secrets.

The copy I have read could do with a bit of tidying up as some passages are repeated verbatim and a number of points are made again and again. All in all, however, it is a very interesting book and I recommend it.

A mix of personal history (more of this) and business history of Rowentree and other chocolate makers. What was going on at the time of start.

Interesting look at chocolate

I enjoyed this book. I enjoyed learning more about Quakers and about the chocolate industry. I liked that the book looked at broader societal issues. There were a couple of times that the writing was especially clever and I would reread those passages. Although the book is quite detailed, it mostly moves along well. Sometimes, however, it just felt like a bunch of dates, events, and data. I enjoyed some of the appendices, which are worth looking at. Especially useful was the family tree, because a lot of the Rowntrees had similar names e.g., there were three Johns and three Josephs. The timeline was also useful. Overall, this was an enjoyable read. Thank you to Netgalley and Pen & Sword for the advance reader copy.

I took a chance in reading this history book as it wasn't a subject I knew a lot about other than the Rowntree's were one of the main families involved in the industry and that they were famously Quakers. Luckily I was in a good hands as this is a solid and interesting book that is obviously written by an experienced writer of historical nonfiction. There is a massive amount of information and I learnt so much including about subjects I had not expected like chicory. The most interesting and important part for me was learning about the treatment of workers and worker relations, a fascinating part of the company's history and legacy. The book also explores the interesting intersection between running such a global company and having such a strong Quaker belief. I recommend this book for anone interested in this era of history and as a study of a complex man in Joseph Rowntree.

There is more to just eating confections than meets the eye! This is delectable book for history and confectionery lovers the world over!
This book, as much as it looks into the very being of Rowntrees and other companies, with them at the centre, it has more to it than meets the eye!
Thanks to Pen & Sword for accepting my request to review this wonderfully interesting book, which goes into little known corners of the confectionary world with its very interesting insights.

Full review
Rowntrees is about that famous family, especially Henry and Joseph who are synonymous with the birth of chocolate and in how it has grown.

It charts how Henry is the founder of Rowntrees and it details about his younger brother Joseph. It's one for the reader with a sweet-tooth and with an interest in how these companies came about, as it has other confectionery companies mentioned too. The pace is excellent for such a historical non-fiction book. It's interesting as Henry and Joseph Rowntree weren't just pioneering chocolate, but also in treating their staff well. It demonstrates their philanthropy and human interest and industrial relations, influenced by them being Quakers. The book has lots of context to it and mentions Lewis Fry and George Cadbury as well as The East India Tea Company and Nestle and how events influenced their ways of working and brought about meetings with Samuel Tuke, who is a key man.

There is plenty of history, even if you don't have a sweet-tooth as it isn't all chocolate related. It chronicles improvements to buildings and schooling and the contributions the Rowntrees made and how Joseph, especially, had been active in so many good causes.

There's a lot to learn about the Confectionery Industry from the Mid nineteenth century onwards. It's written in a manner as though studies have just been done and the information is unfolding for the first time. This style of writing brings some excitement to the book, especially when talking about what chocolate contains and how cacao can be consumed. The book shows differences in branding and advertising, which is a bit like an exclusive sneaky peak behind the scenes. It's interesting what is uncovered within the book, including competition and the concerns of industrial espionage.

As the book takes readers through the years, its pace builds up some excitement as chocolate emerges and becomes established in York, England. Although there are a lot of figures and dates, it adds to the context and doesn't detract from the rest of the facts, so even if figures aren't your thing, the rest of the book might well be and the pace is kept-up.

In the modern day, there seems to be more discoveries and it is exquisite that there are still old traditions that still survive today. It truly is all a delightful feast for the eyes and it may just make you want to buy some of Rowntree's confectionery as you read the rapid rise and rise of it all as it documents drinking chocolate, eating chocolate, sweets such as humbugs and pastilles, all of which still survive today.

The book nicely and respectfully concludes with The Last Will and Testament of Henry Isaac Rowntree and the heritage and suggests where to find further reading on the subject matters within the book. Beyond that, there are pictures of the Rowntrees and George Cadbury as well as some of the architecture, landscape and advertisement posters of their times, which is a delight to see.

As a KitKat lover, as well as most chocolates, Rowntree's by Paul Chrystal was a very interesting read. Learning about the Tuke family and the way the business was built was fascinating and gave a good history of Rowntree's.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley.

As someone who lives near York and can see the impact and influence the Rowntree family on the beautiful city I was keen to read this and learn more about these benevolent employers. Well, that what I wanted but it’s not entirely what I got as you have to sift through a morass of information to get to what I wanted to know! There’s everything you could ever possibly wish to know about cocoa, Rowntree’s competitors and so on and I found the depth at times overwhelming. The research has certainly been very thorough which is clearly a positive. I enjoyed the interesting background of Joseph Senior and how he set the example of good works which was continued through the subsequent generations. The impact of their Quaker beliefs obviously led to good works, their involvement in the Temperance Movement but also their attitudes to business which clearly brought success. I also enjoyed the sections on Henry Rowntree in particular interest as he founded the company that became so famous and although he came across as not the best businessman in the world he also seemed immensely likeable. Because Henry was an ‘impetuous butterfly’ the business was taken over by Joseph Rowntree II and this is when it took of as a business and becoming a world wide company by the dawn of the twentieth century. I was especially interested in the influence of August Claude Gaget in the introduction of the sweet market to the company, he introduced the forerunner of Fruit Gums and Pastilles which are still marketed today. Joseph II can be credited with much of what is still visible today in York, the ‘new’ factory on Haxby Road (now Nestle), the New Earswick Garden Village for workers, Rowntree Park and Theatre all of which leave behind the Rowntree legacy.

Overall, I found the depth somewhat exhaustive and it felt a bit like being bombarded with facts I won’t remember. However if you have a desire to read something that covers cocoa and chocolate manufacture including the Rowntrees then this is your book!

With thanks to NetGalley and Pen and Sword for the arc for an honest review.

This book looks at the early days of the founding of Rowntree's in York and the brothers move away from a grocery store to coca making and later sweet making and the move to modern buildings and the model village for the workers similar to Cadbury's had done in Bournville. This book is very interlinked with the authors other title history of sweets as one section has been taken directly from that book.