Death Cert - friendly societies act

[cristol]

I have just been given a copy of a death certificate for my Grandmother issued in 1982 in Tyneside.

The heading for the certificate reads : -

Certified Copy of an entry of Death
Issued at a reduced fee in pursuance of and for the purposes of the First Schedule to the
INDUSTRIAL ASSURANCE AND FRIENDLY SOCIETIES ACT 1948
And the fifth schedule to the FRIENDLY SOCIETIES ACT 1974

I have not seen this before - can anybody explain the significance of this wording and how/why the certificate was obtained in this way.
Ta
Lesley

[Peter Goodey]

Certificates could be obtained at a reduced fee if they were needed for certain specified statutory purposes. Birth certificates in relation to certain Education Acts are often found. It looks as if the death certificate in this case was specifically needed in order to obtain death benefit from a Friendly Society.

[Mutley]

If I remember rightly there used to be small insurance policies for a death, I think they were called penny policies or something like that. People paid a few shillings a week (often to a collector who called at the house) and received something like £30 towards their funeral.

The certificate required was a proof of death but I cannot remember if it contained the full details. Does the one you have contain all the details or is it like the short form of a birth certificate?

[cristol]

Thanks Peter and Mutley
That all makes sense.
I now can remember an Insurance man calling at our house re the "penny policies" ( not sure what they were for, although I can remember great excitement when a payout was due, so presumably these weren't for death benefits) but didn't equate this to the certificate.
I wonder what the difference in price would have been.
The certificate is very comprehensive and although I did have most of the details - it did confirm a couple of "grey areas" for me.
Thanks guys
Lesley

[cristol]

Now I come to think of it - I did have a specially worded birth certificate for my mother – I think when she started work at a factory at age 14 and now with this one – I wonder if there is information anywhere of just how many special scenario/reduced price certificates there were. Which then begs the question – would families often only obtain/buy a certificate if needed for a specific purpose, rather than just as a record/confirmation of an event? Or would these have been in addition to the normal certificates?

[Mutley]

I don't think, way back, certificates were that important, I doubt they were ever really necessary and many folk could not read them anyway.

After the 'National Health' was introduced I suppose they were needed for proof of age for pensions and various other benefits as well as insurance payouts and I would think that people would acquire the cheapest possible option. I know my dad, when he died fifteen years ago only seemed to have the short form birth certificate. He obviously had never needed the full monty.

I know sometime ago there was quite a long thread regarding the short form certificates but I cannot find it now. I also looked on google and Northern Ireland says a short version of a certificate is £6.00 but I cannot see a price on the English GRO site.

[olliecat]

I think the register office would issue a special death certificate if you intended to claim from an insurance policy. The wording at the top would be slightly different from a regular death cert, e.g.

‘for the purpose of the industrial assurance and friendly societies act 1948’

You would send this certificate off and hopefully be able to claim for burial expenses.

The 1948 Industrial Assurance and Friendly Societies Act act limited the amount you could claim for burial expenses to £20. This was because the goverment felt that since a death grant was included in the National Insurance Scheme, 'there was no longer the same need for life-of-another policies for the purpose of meeting the cost of burial.' There were subsequent amendments to this act.

Here’s a link. The act is explained on page 2.

actuaries.org.uk/sites/all/files/documents/pdf/0164-0167_0.pdf (put www. in front)

There were earlier friendly society acts; some passed with the intent to limit fraudulent claims. For example, before 1847 some people falsely registered deaths so they could claim from burial clubs. They would just toddle along to a register office and claim their (nonexistent) granny had died and could they please have a death certificate; quite easy to do since you didn’t actually need to produce a body to register a death. In 1847 an act was passed to try and stop such fraudulent behaviour, after which one required a medical certificate as well as a death certificate to be able to claim from a friendly society. This of course didn’t prevent murders being committed with the intent to claim on insurance.

If you are interested, here’s a podcast from the National Archives about Friendly Society burial clubs which discusses such fraudulent behaviour. I came across it a while ago and enjoyed listening to it.

https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/p...37027-play.htm

[cristol]

If you are interested, here’s a podcast from the National Archives about Friendly Society burial clubs which discusses such fraudulent behaviour.

Thanks very much Olliecat for the great links - the podcast was very illuminating. Interesting that the payouts were set so low, but very understandable when you hear the stories of what went on before.

I would think that people would acquire the cheapest possible option.

As I only found the "special" birth certificate amongst my mother's things I assume that is indeed the case and she would not have needed any other during the course of her life.


Lesley

[Hollytree]

If you have Wiltshire families then the Wiltshire FHS have indexed and taken excerpts from the 'Wiltshire Friendly Society'. I asked for a list of some of the names I was researching and the information proved quite interesting. I found a sibling of my ggrandfather who I had missed, he had been born in a different parish and for my husband's ancestor the register gave information about some sick pay he had drawn from the Society's coffers.

Wilt FHS indexes give the date that the man enrolled on the scheme, where he lived, his name, dob, place of birth, occupation, plus information regarding the level of monies he was paying in each week.

Now as to whether other Friendly Societies records exist for other counties I know not, but the indexes produced by this FHS gave me a bit more information to add...........

Anne

[cristol]

That's interesting Anne - I don't have any Wiltshire people at the moment but it may be worth me checking for records for Northumberland Friendly Societies.
Thanks...........Lesley