Joseph Rowntree (Senior) (10 June 1801 – 4 November 1859) was an English shopkeeper and educationalist.
This gave Joseph the time to channel his energies into a wide range of social and educational issues, which he discussed almost daily with Samuel Tuke (1784-1857).
He was, from 1830 until his death, honorary secretary of the Quaker boys and girls schools in York, and he was largely responsible for their respective moves to Bootham in 1846 and The Mount in 1857.
The death of a young master in the fever epidemic of 1828 (leaving dependents) led him not merely to ensure that the immediate need was met, but to work methodically for the establishment of a financially sound insurance scheme; this resulted in the Friends Provident Institution (1832), the introduction of whose Rules and Regulations needed to make clear to Quakers that life insurance neither implied a distrust of Providence nor was in the nature of a lottery.
It was not until 1859 that the Yearly Meeting was prepared to ask Parliament to broaden the provision and the Marriage (Society of Friends) Act 1860 provided for this change.