Friendly Societies Act 1875

The Friendly Societies Act 1875 was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom passed by Benjamin Disraeli's Conservative Government following the publication of the Royal Commission on Friendly Societies' Final Report.

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 accepting tight regulation as a condition of being registered in the shape of submitting quinquennial returns on sickness and mortality which would be used to evaluate their assets against liabilities. [John Macnicol, "The Politics of Retirement in Britain, 1878-1948" (Cambridge University Press, 2002), p. 114.]

Friendly societies paid "de facto" old-age pensions 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. [Macnicol, p. 118.]

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". [William Flavelle Monypenny and George Earle Buckle, "The Life of Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield. Volume II. 1860–1881" (London: John Murray, 1929), pp. 704-5.]

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