Benjamin Seebohm Rowntree, CH (7 July 1871 – 7 October 1954) was an English sociological researcher, social reformer and industrialist. He is known in particular for his three York studies of poverty conducted in 1899, 1935, and 1951. The first York study involved a comprehensive survey into the living conditions of the poor in York during which investigators visited every working class household, and his methodology inspired many subsequent researches in British empirical sociology. By strictly defining the concept of poverty in his studies, he was able to reveal that the poverty in York was more of structural rather than moral reasons, such as of low wages, which went against the traditionally held view that the poor were responsible for their own plight. Life Seebohm Rowntree was born in York, the second son of the Quaker Joseph Rowntree, who had been a master grocer but was becoming a successful cocoa and chocolate manufacturer, and Emma Antoinette Seebohm. He was educated first privately and then from the age of 10 at Bootham School. Rowntree studied chemistry at Owen's College, Manchester for five terms before joining the family firm in 1889, where he laid the foundations of the firm's first chemistry department. He became the first Labour Director in 1897 when the firm became a limited liability company and was the chairman from 1923 to 1941. During the First World War he was Director of the Welfare Department at the Ministry of Munitions, under the leadership of David Lloyd George. In 1897 he married Lydia Potter (1868/9–1944), daughter of Edwin Potter, an engineer; they had four sons and one daughter. After his wife died, he lived in a wing of Former Prime Minister, Benjamin Disraeli's old house, Hughenden Manor, where he died after a heart attack in 1954. He was 83 years old. Work First York study (1899) Rowntree investigated poverty in York, inspired by the work of his father Joseph Rowntree and the work of Charles Booth in London. He carried out a comprehensive survey into the living conditions of the poor in York during which investigators visited every working class household. This amounted to the detailed study of 11,560 families or 46,754 individuals. The results of this study were published in 1901 in his book Poverty, A Study of Town Life. In Rowntree's work, he surveyed rich families in York and drew a poverty line in terms of a minimum