I have f interests in People’s Pension and the Partnership that holds it. I’m interested in mutuals as they are as a means of distributing value from other people’s money, especially when their are employers so involved. People’s seem to have found a way to look at pensions from the point of view of those disadvantaged by the system , what we nowadays call the “vulnerable” but what in the times of the first Queen Elizabeth they called the “poor Citizens”.
David is clearly someone who has an interest in the gestation of pensions in Britain and I enjoyed reading this piece on LinkedIn.
📜 In 1582 the City of London: ‘devised to be taken out of the streets all the lame and aged people such as had not any place to go into. And they should all be conveyed to the Hospital of St. Thomas in Southwark where they should have meat, drink and lodging, Surgeons, other officers to attend upon them… they also devised yet more that all the decayed poor Citizens should have weekly a pension according to his necessity.’
🏥 More famous as a teaching hospital and for Florence Nightingale, St Thomas had a notable role to play in the early history of old age pensions, as local authorities struggled to find ways to support the aged poor between the dissolution of the monasteries and the establishment of the Poor Laws at the end of the 16th Century.
🗺️ The site of old St Thomas, which had been serving the old and needy since at least the 11th century, is located by London Bridge station. Nothing much remains today except the 17th century chapel and slightly forlorn looking plaque.
St Thomas’ hospital now exists by Waterloo bridge. It was the place my child was born and where it was thought I had died this time last year. But it is not the site that David point us to. Here is the context of that plaque! Falafel dispensary.
Here is the 17th century chapel to make the story complete. Health, food and the rudimentary pension backed by a protestant religion that has seen over everything since the sixteenth century.
Finally an etching of what the original St Thomas looked like, (thanks David) , a reminder how deep the mutuality of welfare goes.
David is too polite to make the connection to the mutual he works for and the pension it will provide (once we get them by default). But I will not hold back, looking at the roots of pensions and healthcare in London reminds me of the roots of our welfare – our wealth.
The word “welfare” comes from Middle English, formed by combining “well” and “fare,” meaning “to fare well” or “to do well,” originating from Old English phrases like wel faran, signifying prosperity, good fortune, and successful living.
It first appeared in the 14th century and initially meant general well-being, with its modern-day association with government aid developing much later, leading to a concept of “the welfare state”.
“The common weal” (or commonweal) also originated in Middle English (mid-14th century) as “comen wele,” meaning the common good or public welfare, derived from “common” and “weal” (well-being/prosperity).
“Commonwealth” evolved from this to mean a political community or nation argued by some to be founded for the common good, like the (British) Commonwealth of Nations or US states like Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Massachusetts and Virginia.
Essentially, common weal is the goal (public welfare), and commonwealth is the body politic aiming for that goal.
The Commonwealth of Nations, however, faces significant criticisms for being an outmoded post-colonial club, lacking real political power, struggling with human rights issues, and being overshadowed by some members’ new alliances (eg with China), making it seem irrelevant or a “talking shop”, despite its shared history and its younger demographic.
Critics argue its symbolic nature doesn’t match its very limited impact on global affairs, with some seeing it as a tool for Britain’s nostalgic leadership rather than a truly equitable union of member states.