John Wilhelm Rowntree

John Wilhelm Rowntree (4 September 1868 – 9 March 1905) was a chocolate and confectionery manufacturer and Quaker religious activist and reformer.

[1][2] He was born on 4 September 1868 in York, the eldest son of Joseph Rowntree (1836–1925) and his second wife, Antoinette Seebohm (1846–1924).

He established a cocoa plantation in the West Indies to prevent other companies from controlling the supply.

By the turn of the century, Rowntrees was selling to Australia and New Zealand and exploring poassibilities in North America.

Originally a volunteer orderly with the Friends' Ambulance Unit at Dunkirk, he subsequently joined the British Army and fought in the first tank action at Flers–Courcelette on 15 September 1916 as a member of the crew of HMLS Creme-de-Menthe.