Mr W, Fraser on Benefit or Friendly Societies. 123 



for pecuniary benefits during professional incapacity, arising 

 from sickness, accidents, or other bodily infirmity ; and Life 

 Assurance makes provision for old age, sums payable at death, 

 and annuities to widows or other nominees. Such at least 

 comprise all the usual transactions of Friendly Societies. 



These institutions are of great antiquity, and those in Britain 

 are ascertained to have originated with the Saxon Gilds or Cor- 

 porations, whose objects were chiefly to supply funds for relief to 

 their members in times of pecuniary or bodily distress, for pro- 

 tection from personal injury, and convivial enjoyments. Sir Fre- 

 derick Eden, in his work on the Poor, has given the Rules 

 of two of these Gilds or Societies established at Cambridge and 

 Exeter, previous to the Norman Conquest, and which, so far as 

 relates to benefits during sickness and at death, run almost in 

 the same terms as the Regulations of Friendly Societies now in 

 use. The first institution, however, under this appellation, 

 of which any record appears to have been obtained, was 

 the Friendly Society of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, founded only in 

 1719. Towards the commencement of the late King''s reign, 

 such societies began to multiply rapidly in number. At this 

 period Friendly Societies were merely connected with incor- 

 porated or such other trades as were chiefly confined to 

 towns, and for the benefit of their decayed members only. 

 Sickness or infirmity did not alone entitle to benefit, unless 

 when coupled with extreme indigence, and even this limited re- 

 lief was restricted and regulated, according to the amount of the 

 funds at the time, and the opinion the society or its managers 

 might form of the wants of the applicants. The advantages, 

 however, derived from them, even upon this limited scale, were 

 soon observed and duly appreciated by other classes of the com- 

 munity ; and numerous societies of all ranks and occupations 

 Avere, in a short time, formed in almost every town and consi- 

 derable village in the kingdom. From being charitable associa- 

 tions, too, they have now assumed the more respectable character 

 of mutual assurance societies, where every individual is entitled 

 to claim as his right the stipulated allowances ; and hence the 

 idea of charity, so repugnant to every independent mind, can 

 no longer be associated with these copartneries. 



Institutions for Life and Health Assurance, have been for 



