Mary Tuke and her family were Quakers, a religious group who favored the cocoa industry because it offered workers an alternative to strong drink. She met resistance from the Merchant Adventurers’ Company, whose rules determined that a license was required by them in order to trade, and she was deemed ineligible being neither widow nor daughter of a member of the company.
In 1862, Henry Isaac Rowntree acquired the cocoa side of his cousin’s business. At first the business struggled, and near bankruptcy when, in 1869, his elder brother Joseph was sent to assess its finances and rescue his business. Joseph then joined his younger brother, in his newly founded cocoa and chocolate business. His great asset was his sons; John Wilhelm entered the factory in 1885 and Seebohm in 1888. Trade had improved, business had expanded.
Henry died in 1883 and the business passed to his brother who, in time, expanded the business to the chocolate factory on Haxby Road. Rowntree’s Elect Cocoa was announced in 1887. This and the gum pastilles were responsible for the growth, between 1883 and 1894, of the number of employees from 200 to 894. Joseph transformed his brother’s cocoa and chocolate business into a major confectionery manufacturer and a household name.
Rowntree’s owned York’s first motor car, which they used to promote the brand by creating a giant can of Elect Cocoa and putting it on the car. The public would come from miles around to see the spectacle.
Rowntree later merged with Mackintosh, and later was taken over by Nestlé in 1988, but continues to operate as a brand. Many sweets and chocolate bars that are a much-loved part of British life are manufactured in the York factory, like Kit Kat, Aero, Milkybar and Yorkie.
History of chocolate business: Rowntree of York
