The Friendly Societies Act 1875 was an Act of the

Parliament of the United Kingdom The Parliament of the United Kingdom is the supreme legislative body of the United Kingdom, the Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories. It meets at the Palace of Westminster, London. It alone possesses legislative suprema ...

passed by

Benjamin Disraeli Benjamin Disraeli, 1st Earl of Beaconsfield, (21 December 1804 – 19 April 1881) was a British statesman and Conservative politician who twice served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. He played a central role in the creation o ...

Conservative Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy that seeks to promote and to preserve traditional institutions, practices, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilization i ...

government following the publication of the Royal Commission on

Friendly Societies A friendly society (sometimes called a benefit society, mutual aid society, benevolent society, fraternal and service organisations, fraternal organization or Rotating savings and credit association, ROSCA) is a mutual association for the purpo ...

' Final Report. It was one of the Friendly Societies Acts 1875 to 1895 The Act encouraged friendly societies to register with the Registrar of Friendly Societies by granting them the legal right to own land and property in the name of their trustees and the ability to take out legal proceedings in return for registration. Registered societies were subject to regulation, for example they were required to submit

quinquennial An anniversary is the date on which an event took place or an institution was founded in a previous year, and may also refer to the commemoration or celebration of that event. The word was first used for Catholic feasts to commemorate saints. ...

returns to the Registrar which gave details of their financial affairs and in-force business which could be used by the Registrar to evaluate their assets against their liabilities under

life assurance Life insurance (or life assurance, especially in the Commonwealth of Nations) is a contract between an insurance policy holder and an insurer or assurer, where the insurer promises to pay a designated beneficiary a sum of money upon the death ...

annuity In investment, an annuity is a series of payments made at equal intervals.Kellison, Stephen G. (1970). ''The Theory of Interest''. Homewood, Illinois: Richard D. Irwin, Inc. p. 45 Examples of annuities are regular deposits to a savings account, mo ...

and sickness business. Friendly societies paid ''de facto'' old-age

pension A pension (, from Latin ''pensiō'', "payment") is a fund into which a sum of money is added during an employee's employment years and from which payments are drawn to support the person's retirement from work in the form of periodic payments ...

s in the form of sickness benefit and the Act defined "old age" as 50 and above, and although a court ruling claimed that "natural decay" was not "sickness" the majority of friendly societies did not accept this ruling as they were in competition with each other and so therefore wanted to continue paying pensions to attract new members. The Act allowed friendly societies considerable self-management "but insured the adoption of sound rules, effective audit, and rates of payment sufficient to maintain solvency. It established the friendly societies, and with them the people's savings on a satisfactory basis". In 1889 Mr Braxton Hicks, the London coroner, wrote a letter to the Times about the dangers of child life insurance. He wrote that the insurances act as a temptation to the parents to neglect them, or feed them with improper food, and sometimes even to kill them, as in the excessively numerous cases of "over-laying" or suffocating in bed.

References

*William Andrews Holdsworth. The Friendly Societies Act, 1875. With Explanatory Introduction and Notes; an Appendix containing the Clauses of other Acts affecting Friendly Societies and an Index. George Routledge and Sons. The Broadway, Ludgate, London. 1875
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{{UK legislation United Kingdom Acts of Parliament 1875 1875 in law Friendly societies of the United Kingdom