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TITUS SALT , GEORGE CADBURY AND ANDREW CARNEGIE
A great example of Victorian Christian philanthropists is Sir Titus Salt (1803-1876). Born in Morley, near Leeds, Salt was a manufacturer and benefactor in Bradford, West Yorkshire. In 1833 he took over the running of his father’s business and within twenty years had expanded it to be the largest employer in Bradford. In 1848 he became mayor of Bradford. By then, Bradford had gained the reputation of being the most polluted town in England. Life expectancy, at just 18 years, was one of the lowest in the country.
Salt, who now owned five textile mills in Bradford, was one of the few employers in the town who showed any concern for this problem. After much experimentation, he discovered that the Rodda Smoke Burner vastly reduced pollution. In 1842 he arranged for these burners to be used in all his factories. In 1848 Salt became mayor of Bradford. He tried hard to persuade the council to pass a by-law that would force all factory owners in the town to use these new smoke burners. The other factory owners in Bradford were opposed to the idea. Most of them refused to accept that the smoke produced by their factories was damaging people's health.
When Titus Salt realised the council was unwilling to take action, he decided to move from Bradford. In 1850, Salt announced his plans to build a new industrial community called Saltaire at a nearby beauty spot on the banks of the River Aire. Saltaire, which was three miles from Bradford, took twenty years to build. At the centre of the village, of 850 houses, was Salt’s textile mill. The mill was the largest and most modern in Europe. Noise in the factory was reduced by placing underground much of the shafting which drove the machinery. Large flues removed the dust and dirt from the factory floor. To ensure that the neighbourhood did not suffer from polluted air, the mill chimney was fitted with Rodda Smoke Burners.
Saltaire also had its own park, church, school, hospital, library and a whole range of different shops. The houses in Saltaire were far superior to those available in Bradford and other industrial towns. Fresh water was piped into each home from Saltaire’s own 500,000 gallon reservoir. Gas was also laid on to provide lighting and heating. Unlike the people of Bradford, every family in Saltaire had its own outside lavatory. To encourage people to keep themselves clean, Salt also arranged for public baths and wash-houses to be built in Saltaire.
Salt was also active in politics, becoming a Liberal MP until ill health forced his retirement. He supported adult suffrage and did not believe that the 1832 Reform Act went far enough. Salt helped establish the United Reform Society, an attempt to unite middle and working class reformers. He also supported the move to reduce working hours and was the first employer in the Bradford area to introduce the ten hour day. On the down side, Salt employed young children in his factories and was totally opposed to the 1833 Factory Act that attempted to prevent children under the age of nine working in textile mills.
Although he had been an extremely rich man, his family was horrified that, by the time he died, his fortune was gone. It has been estimated that during his life he had given away over £500,000 to good causes. He was also a benefactor to the Congregational Church. His funeral was reputedly attended by 100,000 people.
Another famous example of a Victorian businessman/philanthropist is George Cadbury, a Quaker. His loyal and hard-working workers were treated with great respect and relatively high wages and good working conditions; Cadbury also pioneered pension schemes, joint works committees and a full staff medical service. Indeed, the Cadburys were particularly concerned with the health of their workforce, incorporating garden areas into the plans for their model village – Bournville – as well as encouraging swimming, walking and all forms of outdoor sports.
George Cadbury bought 120 acres (0.5 km²) of land close to his works and planned Bournville at his own expense. He aimed to “alleviate the evils of modern more cramped living conditions”. Bournville’s design became a blueprint for many other model village estates around Britain. Because George Cadbury was a Quaker, no public houses have ever been built in Bournville.
Today, a revival of Christian business geared to evangelistic and social ends is needed now more than ever in the UK. A 2006 article in The Observer (April 16, by Tristram Hunt), said that “the truth is that we have far too little philanthropy. As Major Bill Cochrane of the Salvation Army puts it: ‘There is a meanness abroad in society today.’ Barring a few high-profile exceptions… the rich in Britain give far too little of their money away. The admirable Andrew Carnegie principle of distributing excess wealth ‘best calculated to produce the most beneficial result for the community’ is notably absent among our super-rich.
“The UK wealthy give less as a proportion of their income than the poor; they give substantially less than their peers in America; and they don't even begin to match their predecessors. At 2005 prices, the Victorian millocrats and merchant princes gave £210 per capita compared with a miserly £114 today… The multinational nature of modern corporations combined with aggressive shareholder activism means that commercial generosity is drying up. Where once the likes of WH Smith and Prudential spent liberally, now the audit committees have cut the cash. According to Colin Tweedy of Arts & Business: ‘The great age of industrial philanthropy is over. More and more now, it is a question of shareholder value.’”
Andrew Carnegie(1835 –1919), mentioned above, could well serve as a model for Christian business people today, although he was not a Christian himself. Carnegie, a Scottish-born American businessman, was the founder of the Carnegie Steel Company, which later became U.S. Steel. At his height, Carnegie was the second wealthiest person in the world, after John D. Rockefeller. Yet he gave away most of his riches to fund the establishment of many libraries, schools, and universities in Scotland, America, and worldwide.
In his famous 1889 essay ‘Wealth’, Carnegie told his fellow business leaders that “the man who dies thus rich dies disgraced” – a principle very similar to Jesus’ own instruction that we should not store up treasure on earth but in heaven, and his parable about the man who built bigger barns to store his crop for tomorrow but whose life was taken today.
Carnegie felt stiff inheritance taxes might be necessary, to force the rich to pass their money back to society rather than leave it to pampered heirs. True to his beliefs, by his death in 1919 Carnegie had given away more than 95 percent of his fortune ($350,695,653 - approximately $4.3 billion, adjusted to 2005 figures). After his death, the last $30,000,000 was likewise given away to foundations, charities and pensioners.
Carnegie was passionate about business achievers repaying their debt to society, applying their skills to philanthropic enterprise. He wanted active involvement, not just donations. He wanted his giving to breed more enterprise, not end it. He didn’t want the type of charity that encourages dependency. Today’s business megastar Bill Gates seems to have followed Carnegie’s example. He has transferred $17 billion to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. But far too few of his business peers have joined him.
It is time for an army of Christian business people to resurrect the age of industrial philanthropy!
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