Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-hfldf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-05-19T05:45:18.068Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Friendly Societies and the Discourse of Respectability in Britain, 1825–1875

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 January 2014

Simon Cordery
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

In nineteenth-century Britain, friendly societies (working-class mutual benefit clubs) and ruling elites contested definitions of respectability and independence in a struggle to delineate relations between societies and the state. This process was an important part of an ongoing set of negotiations by which working-class organizations influenced middle-class attitudes toward collective action. Pressure from friendly societies forced members of Parliament and bureaucrats to accept their claim to respectability and, with it, to independence from state control, changing the discourse of respectability in three stages. During the first quarter of the century, clergymen and landowners equated respectability with middle-class patronage and independence from the Poor Law. Around midcentury, the societies appropriated the discourse of respectability and, with qualified elite approval, used it to redefine independence as freedom from middle-class supervision. By the 1870s, however, friendly society leaders requested government assistance to limit the independence of rank-and-file members, whose autonomy they claimed was a threat to the societies' respectability.

Friendly societies wanted, as one member wrote, “to do what is ‘respectable.’” This meant redefining respectability in a collective, working-class context. While middle-class definitions rested on the premise that individualism and self-help were the twin foundations of respectability, friendly societies gained access to the social power of respectability by offering an alternative definition based on collective self-help and independence from external control. Friendly societies were democratically managed insurance clubs offering sickness and burial coverage and sociable activities in return for regular payments. They often met in public houses, which they identified as respectable, contradicting middle-class attitudes.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of British Studies , Volume 34 , Issue 1 , January 1995 , pp. 35 - 58
Copyright
Copyright © North American Conference of British Studies 1995

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Harris, John, “The Friendly Society Halls,” Friendly Societies' Journal (London) 8 (May 1855): 5Google Scholar.

2 The literature on friendly societies is extremely limited. The most recent monographs are Gosden, P. H. J. H., The Friendly Societies in England, 1815–1875 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1961)Google Scholar, and Self-Help: Voluntary Associations in the Nineteenth Century (London: B. T. Batsford, 1973)Google Scholar; Fuller, Margaret D., West Country Friendly Societies: An Account of Village Benefit Clubs and Their Brass Pole Heads (Lingford: Oakwood Press, 1964)Google Scholar; and Neave, David, Feasts, Fellowship and Financial Aid: South Holderness Friendly Societies (Beverley: Hedon and District Local History Society, 1986)Google Scholar, East Riding Friendly Societies (Beverley: East Yorkshire Local History Society, 1988)Google Scholar, and Mutual Aid in the Victorian Countryside: Friendly Societies in the Rural East Riding, 1830–1914 (Hull: Hull University Press, 1991)Google Scholar. For the importance of medical insurance and attendance, see Green, David G., Working-Class Patients and the Medical Establishment: Self-Help in Britain from the Mid-Nineteenth Century to 1948 (New York: St. Martin's, 1985)Google Scholar; and Marland, Hilary, Medicine and Society in Wakefield and Huddersfield, 1780–1870 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987)Google Scholar; for burial benefits, see Richardson, Ruth, Death, Dissection and the Destitute (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1989)Google Scholar.

3 Thompson, F. M. L., The Rise of Respectable Society: A Social History of Victorian Britain, 1830–1900 (London: Fontana, 1988), p. 200Google Scholar.

4 In 1872, membership in registered female friendly societies was 22,691, 1.2 percent of the total: Royal Commission on Friendly and Benefit Building Societies, Fourth Report of the Commissioners, Parliamentary Papers (PP), 1874Google Scholar, c. 961, 23, pt. 1:cxlii. There has been very little research on female friendly societies, reflecting the field as a whole. See Harrison, Brian, “For Church, Queen and Family: The Girls' Friendly Society, 1874–1920,” Past and Present, no. 61 (November 1973), pp. 107–38Google Scholar; and Jones, Dot, “Self-Help in Nineteenth Century Wales: The Rise and Fall of the Female Friendly Society,” Llafur: The Journal of the Welsh Labour History Society 4, no. 1 (1984): 14–26Google Scholar.

5 Neave, David, “Mutual Benefit Societies in Great Britain” (paper presented to the International Colloquium on Mutual Benefit Societies, Paris, December 1992), p. 1Google Scholar.

6 Though subscription rates were generally higher for affiliated orders, their members were drawn from all occupations. See Gosden, , Friendly Societies, p. 74Google Scholar; Kirk, Neville, The Growth of Working Class Reformism in Mid-Victorian Britain (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1985), pp. 198–99Google Scholar; Savage, Michael, The Dynamics of Working-Class Politics: The Labour Movement in Preston, 1880–1940 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), p. 126Google Scholar; and Neave, , East Riding Friendly Societies, p. 24Google Scholar.

7 Best, Geoffrey, Mid-Victorian Britain, 1851–1870 (Glasgow: Collins, 1982), pp. 282–84Google Scholar. A compelling analysis of the gendering of respectability is Ross, Ellen, “‘Not the Sort That Would Sit on the Doorstep’: Respectability in Pre-World War I London Neighborhoods,” International Labor and Working Class History 27 (Spring 1985): 39–59CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Jones, “Self-Help in Nineteenth Century Wales”; and McClelland, Keith, “Masculinity and the ‘Respresentative Artisan’ in Britain, 1850–80,” in Manful Assertions: Masculinities in Britain since 1800, ed. Roper, Michael and Tosh, John (London: Routledge, 1991), pp. 82–87Google Scholar.

8 Thompson, , Rise of Respectable Society, pp. 105, 61–62, 83, and 136, 137, 181, 193, 225, 261, 354Google Scholar. The quotations are found on pp. 311 and 360. For the ramifications of respectability and independence in mid-Victorian Britain, see Price, Richard, Labour in British Society: An Interpretative History (London: Routledge, 1986), pp. 84–85Google Scholar.

9 Crossick, Geoffrey, “The Labour Aristocracy and Its Values: A Study of Mid-Victorian Kentish London,” Victorian Studies 19, no. 3 (March 1976): 320, 310, 306Google Scholar.

10 Kirk, pp. 189, 220–21, 222.

11 Bailey, Peter, Leisure and Class in Victorian England: Rational Recreation and the Contest for Control, 1830–1885 (London: Routledge & Regan Paul, 1978), p. 177Google Scholar.

12 Bailey, Peter, “‘Will the Real Bill Banks Please Stand Up?’ Towards a Role Analysis of Mid-Victorian Working-Class Respectability,” Journal of Social History 12, no. 3 (Spring 1979): 341CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

13 Ibid., pp. 344, 343, 346, 340–41.

14 McCalman, Iain, Radical Underworld: Prophets, Revolutionaries, and Pornographers in London, 1795–1840 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), pp. 205–11Google Scholar.

15 Davis, Jennifer, “Jennings' Buildings and the Royal Borough: The Construction of the Underclass in Mid-Victorian England,” in Metropolis London: Histories and Representations since 1800, ed. Feldman, David and Jones, Gareth Stedman (London: Routledge, 1989), pp. 21, 30Google Scholar.

16 Savage (n. 6 above), pp. 20–23.

17 Smail, John, “New Languages for Labour and Capital: The Transformation of Discourse in the Early Years of the Industrial Revolution,” Social History 12, no. 1 (January 1987): 51CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

18 Tholfsen, Trygve, Working Class Radicalism in Mid-Victorian England (New York: Columbia University Press, 1977), p. 246Google Scholar.

19 See Weaver, Stewart A., John Fielden (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987)Google Scholar; and Driver, Cecil, Tory Radical: The Life of Richard Oastler (1946; reprint, New York: Octagon, 1970)Google Scholar.

20 Thompson, E. P., “The Moral Economy of the English Crowd in the Eighteenth Century,” Past and Present, no. 50 (February 1971), pp. 76–136Google Scholar; and Price, , Labour in British Society (n. 8 above), pp. 52–54Google Scholar.

21 Roberts, David, Paternalism in Early Victorian England (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1979), p. 132Google Scholar.

22 See, e.g., Cole, G. D. H., Attempts at General Union: A Study in British Trade Union History, 1818–1834 (London: Macmillan, 1953), pp. 5, 73Google Scholar; and Pelling, Henry, A History of British Trade Unionism, 4th ed. (London: Macmillan, 1987), pp. 11, 14CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Thompson, E. P., The Making of the English Working Class (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1988), pp. 460–61Google Scholar, refers to the ability of workers to hide their organizations from the middle class at the beginning of the nineteenth century. “Opacity” did not dissolve as the century progressed: see Meacham, Standish, A Life Apart: The English Working Class, 1890–1914 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1977)Google Scholar.

23 Townshend, Joseph, A Dissertation on the Poor Laws (1786; reprint, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1971), p. 51Google Scholar.

24 ReverendMolesworth, John E. N., Friendly Societies … Recommended in a Discourse, Preached at Millbrook and Eling Churches, on the 23rd and 24th of May, 1825 (Southampton: William Skelton [1825?]), p. 8Google Scholar.

25 Becher, John Thomas, Observations upon the Report from the Select Committee of the House of Commons, on the Laws Respecting Friendly Societies (Newark: S. & J. Ridge, 1826), p. 14Google Scholar.

26 Select Committee of the House of Commons on the Laws Respecting Friendly Societies, PP, 1825 (H.C. 522), vol. 4 (hereafter cited as PP, 1825 [H.C. 522]).

27 PP, 1825 (H.C. 522), 4:92 (Fleming); 30 (Becher); 42 (Glenny); and see 93 (Fleming).

28 PP, 1825 (H.C. 522), 4:30 (Becher). See, e.g., ReverendCunningham, J. W., “A Few Observations on Friendly Societies,” Pamphleteer (London) (1823), pp. 163–66Google Scholar.

29 PP, 1825 (H.C. 522), 4:38 (Glenny).

30 Ibid., pp. 27, 31, 33, 31 (Becher).

31 See Prothero, I. J., Artisans and Politics in Early Nineteenth-Century London: John Gast and His Times (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1979)Google Scholar, chap. 12, “The Benefit Societies' Campaign,” esp. pp. 232–35.

32 PP, 1825 (H.C. 522), 4:12 (report).

33 Economist (London), 1, no. 6 (March 3, 1821): 94Google Scholar. For further examples of connections between friendly societies and other working-class organizations in the early nineteenth century, see Thompson, , The Making of the English Working Class (n. 22 above), pp. 182, 462Google Scholar.

34 Roberts (n. 21 above), p. 148.

35 Gosden, , Friendly Societies (n. 2 above), p. 54Google Scholar (table 10). The data are for 1871–72.

36 Jones, Gareth Stedman, “Rethinking Chartism,” in Languages of Class: Studies in English Working Class History, 1832–1982 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), pp. 105–6, 165–66Google Scholar.

37 Burn, W. L., The Age of Equipoise: A Study of the Mid-Victorian Generation (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1964)Google Scholar. Equilibrium could be unbalanced, however: see, e.g., Price, Richard N., “The Other Face of Respectability: Violence in the Manchester Brickmaking Trade, 1859–1870,” Past and Present, no. 66 (February 1975), pp. 110–32Google Scholar; and Davis (n. 15 above).

38 Bradley, Ian, The Optimists: Themes and Personalities in Victorian Liberalism (London: Faber & Faber, 1980), pp. 188–89, 197Google Scholar.

39 9 & 10 Viet., c. 27.

40 10 Geo. IV, c. 56. See Gosden, , Friendly Societies, pp. 177–78Google Scholar.

41 Ibid., pp. 180–81.

42 Ibid., p. 188. All references to the Oddfellows refer to the Independent Order of Oddfellows, Manchester Unity. This designation is necessary because of the existence of other Oddfellow orders, such as the Grand United Order of Oddfellows, the National Independent Order of Oddfellows, and the Bolton Unity of Oddfellows. The Oddfellows and Foresters were the two largest affiliated orders: the Oddfellows had almost 250,000 members and funds of over £4 million, while the Foresters claimed 84,472 members in 1848: ibid., pp. 30, 38 (financial data for the Foresters are unavailable).

43 Hansard Parliamentary Debates, 3d ser., vol. 98 (May 9, 1848)Google Scholar, col. 804.

44 Select Committee of the House of Lords on the Provident Associations Fraud Prevention Bill, PP, 1847–48 (H.L. 648), vol. 16 (hereafter cited as PP, 1847–48 [H.L. 648]); Select Committee of the House of Commons on the Friendly Societies Bill, PP, 1849 (H.C. 458), vol. 14 (hereafter cited as PP, 1849 [H.C. 458]).

45 Hansard Parliamentary Debates, 3d ser., vol. 104 (April 4, 1849)Google Scholar, col. 305.

46 PP, 1849 (H.C. 458), vol. 14, questions (qq.) 2131–32 (Barrow).

47 PP, 1847–48 (H.L. 648), vol. 16, qq. 691 and 740 (Roe).

48 PP, 1849 (H.C. 458), vol. 14, p. v (report).

49 Yeo, Eileen, “Culture and Constraint in Working-Class Movements, 1830–1855,” in Popular Culture and Class Conflict, 1590–1914: Explorations in the History of Labour and Leisure, ed. Yeo, Eileen and Yeo, Stephen (Brighton: Harvester, 1981), p. 161Google Scholar.

50 Thompson, Dorothy, The Chartists: Popular Politics in the Industrial Revolution (New York: Pantheon, 1984), p. 159Google Scholar. For examples of the use of friendly society funds to support radical activities, see New Moral World (London) 11, no. 18. (October 29, 1842): 144Google Scholar; Northern Star (London), no. 346 (June 29, 1844), p. 6Google Scholar.

51 Cordery, Simon, “Joshua Hobson and the Business of Radicalism,” Biography: An Interdisciplinary Quarterly 11, no. 2 (Spring 1988): 108–23CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Royle, Edward, Victorian Infidels: The Origins of the British Secularist Movement, 1791–1866 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1974), p. 92Google Scholar.

52 PP, 1847–48 (H.L. 648), 16:4 (report).

53 See PP, 1849 (H.C. 458), vol. 14, q. 2063 (Luff), for testimony to this effect. For details of similiar anti-Chartist agitation by friendly societies in Wales, see Williams, Gywn A., “Friendly Societies in Glamorgan, 1793–1832,” Bulletin of Celtic Studies 18 (1959): 280Google Scholar. No mention is made of this activity in Saville, John, 1848: The British State and the Chartist Movement (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987)Google Scholar.

54 Ludlow, J. M. and Jones, Lloyd, Progress of the Working Class, 1832–1867 (1867; reprint, Clifton, N.J.: Augustus M. Kelley, 1973), p. 283Google Scholar.

55 See, e.g., Kirk (n. 6 above), p. 160. For the Volunteers, see Cunningham, Hugh, The Volunteer Force: A Social and Political History, 1859–1908 (London: Croom Helm, 1975)Google Scholar.

56 Neave, , Mutual Aid (n. 2 above), pp. 93–94Google Scholar.

57 PP, 1847–48 (H.L. 648), 16:4 (report).

58 Ibid., q. 291 (Smith). For a similar attitude toward the “primitivism” of friendly society ritual, see Hobsbawm, E. J., Primitive Rebels: Studies in Archaic Forms of Social Movement in the 19th and 20th Centuries (New York: W. W. Norton, 1965), pp. 153, 157–58Google Scholar. Needless to say, regalia remained one of the attractions of friendly society membership; Smith seemed willing to promise the moon if it would benefit the organization.

59 PP, 1847–48 (H.L. 648), vol. 16, qq. 280–85 (Smith); qq. 87–88 (Smith).

60 Ibid., qq. 277–78 (Smith). Rule 18 stipulated that members should be fined for “singing an indecent or political song, or giving an indecent or political toast or sentiment,” and rule 254 forbade the publication of “advertisements of a political or religious nature” in the order's quarterly magazine; Laws for the Government of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, of the Manchester Unity (Manchester: Richmond & Froggett, 1841)Google Scholar.

61 Laws for the Government of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows (n. 60 above), rule 1. See also PP, 1849 (H.C. 458), vol. 14, q. 2484 (Roe).

62 PP, 1847–48 (H.L. 648), vol. 16, qq. 775–76 (Roe); q. 101 (Smith).

63 Jones, Gareth Stedman, Outcast London: A Study in the Relationship between Classes in Victorian Society (New York: Pantheon, 1971)Google Scholar; Foster, John, Class Struggle and the Industrial Revolution: Early Industrial Capitalism in Three English Towns (London: Methuen, 1974)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Joyce, Patrick, Work, Society and Politics: The Culture of the Factory in Later Victorian England (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1980)Google Scholar; Beresford, Maurice, East End, West End: The Face of Leeds during Urbanisation, 1684–1842 (Leeds: Thoresby Society, 1988)Google Scholar; and Rodger, Richard, Housing in Urban Britain, 1780–1914: Class, Capitalism, and Construction (London: Macmillan, 1989)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

64 PP, 1847–48 (H.L. 648), 16:4 (report).

65 For examples of the financial drain represented by building halls, see Robert Dansie, “Odd Fellows' Hall,” and Digby, Edward, “Friendly Societies Hall,” Friendly Societies' Journal 7 (April 1855): 4Google Scholar; and 8 (May 1855): 3; and Storey, T. H., “The Oddfellows Hall, Grimsby, and Its Place in the Social Life of the Town,” Lincolnshire History and Archaeology 12 (1977): 49–54Google Scholar.

66 PP, 1849 (H.C. 458), vol. 14, q. 1444 (Barlow); qq. 1196 (Hodgson) and 1746 (Gover); p. 138 (table) and qq. 1445–51 (Barlow); q. 1266 (Sanders).

67 Ibid., q. 1621 (Braby).

68 Harrison, Brian, in Drink and the Victorians: The Temperance Question in England, 1815–1872 (London: Faber & Faber, 1971), pp. 40–41Google Scholar, argues that industrialization restricted drinking to free time, forcing suppliers of leisure activities to structure their offerings around the provision of alcohol. In linking leisure with beer drinking, Harrison contradicts the findings of Bailey in Leisure and Class in Victorian England (n. 11 above) but bolsters those of Price, Richard N., “The Working Men's Club Movement and Victorian Social Reform Ideology,” Victorian Studies 15, no. 2 (December 1971): 117–47Google Scholar.

69 PP, 1849 (H.C. 458), vol. 14, qq. 2582–83 (Tidd Pratt).

70 Ibid., q. 491 (Briggs).

71 Ibid., p. iii (report).

72 The Friendly Societies Act of 1850 (13 & 14 Viet., c. 115) enabled societies to register as branches of affiliated orders, but not until 1875 could the orders register as single bodies.

73 PP, 1849 (H.C. 458), 14: vi (report).

74 Hansard Parliamentary Debates, 3d ser., vol. 98 (May 9, 1848)Google Scholar, cols. 804 and 806.

75 PP, 1849 (H.C. 458), vol. 14, q. 1554 (Barlow); p. vi (report).

76 Hansard Parliamentary Debates, 3d ser., vol. 199 (February 10, 1879)Google Scholar, col. 157. See Ludlow, John, The Autobiography of a Christian Socialist, ed. Murray, A. D. (London: Frank Cass, 1981), p. 285Google Scholar. Ludlow was secretary to the Royal Commission on Friendly and Benefit Building Societies and later served as Friendly Society Registrar.

77 The Royal Commission on Friendly and Benefit Building Societies (1871–74). The evidence used here comes from the Second Report, PP, 1872, c. 514–1, vol. 26. The commission, which published four reports, examined building societies because they were also regulated by the Friendly Societies Registrar.

78 Quoted in Gosden, , Friendly Societies (n. 2 above), p. 94Google Scholar.

79 PP, 1872, c. 514–1, vol. 26, q. 641 (Stephenson). The registrar at this time was Augustus K. Stephenson, who replaced John Tidd Pratt upon the latter's death in January 1870.

80 Ibid., q. 20741 (McCormick).

81 Ibid., q. 23832 (Hughes); q. 8409 (Solly).

82 Ibid., qq. 17403 and 17560–61 (Coombes); q. 19756 (Nicholson). Samuel Smiles, a more acute observer of working-class life than most historians care to acknowledge, recognized the need for public houses as meeting places in Thrift (London: John Murray, 1886), pp. 117–18Google Scholar.

83 Oddfellows' Magazine (Manchester), 39 (March 1908): 90, and 38 (January 1907)Google Scholar: 21.

84 PP, 1872, c. 514–1, vol. 26, q. 21931 (Flannigan); q. 738 (Sotherton).

85 The membership of the Oddfellows grew from 249,261 in 1848 to 434,100 in 1870, an increase of 74 percent, while that of the Foresters quadrupled over the same period, from 84,472 to 361,735; Gosden, , Self-Help (n. 2 above), p. 42Google Scholar.

86 PP, 1872, c. 514–1, vol. 26, q. 181 (Daynes); q. 524 (Shawcross).

87 For the classic analysis of this process, see Webb, Sidney and Webb, Beatrice, The History of Trade Unionism (1894; reprint, New York: Augustus M. Kelley, 1965), chap. 4, esp. pp. 212–13 and 220–22Google Scholar. For more recent interpretations, see Eldridge, J. E. T., “Trade Unions and Bureaucratic Control,” in Trade Unions under Capitalism, ed. Clarke, Tom and Clements, Laurie (Hassocks: Harvester, 1978), pp. 175–83Google Scholar; and Price, Richard, Masters, Unions and Men: Work Control in Building and the Rise of Labour, 1830–1914 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

88 38 & 39 Viet., c. 60. See Gosden, , Self-Help, p. 82Google Scholar.

89 Gilbert, Bentley B., The Evolution of National Insurance in Great Britain: The Origins of the Welfare State (London: Michael Joseph, 1966), pp. 159–232Google Scholar.

90 See Pelling, Henry, “The Working Class and the Origins of the Welfare State,” in his Popular Politics and Society in Late Victorian Britain (London: Macmillan, 1968), pp. 1–18Google Scholar. For details of how the Oddfellows and Foresters intervened in the “pension controversy,” see Treble, James H., “The Attitudes of Friendly Societies towards the Movement in Great Britain for State Pensions, 1878–1908,” International Review of Social History 15, no. 2 (1970): 266–99CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

91 A Journeyman Engineer [Wright, Thomas], “Some Non-Beneficial Customs of Benefit Societies,” in his Some Habits and Customs of the Working Classes (London: Tinsley Brothers, 1867), pp. 67–82Google Scholar.