SOCIAL INSURANCE

Evening Star, Issue 21620, 16 January 1934, Page 8

SOCIAL INSURANCE

IN ELIZABETH'S NAVY HISTORICAL SURPRISE It is not generally known that a scheme of contributory insurance against accidents and disablement was established in the British Navy shortly after the time of the Armada (says a writer in the Manchester Guardian ’). The administration of naval affairs was in the hands of a board consisting of the treasurer, comptroller, surveyor, and clerk of the ships, who were collec-, lively known as the principal officers of the Navy. The most famous of those who-occupied these positions in the latter part of the sixteenth century was Sir John Hawkyns, the treasurer, to whose initiative the insurance scheme was almost certainly due. The pay of the common seaman had stood at 6s 8d a mouth from the middle of the century until 1586, when it was raised to 10s at Hawkyns’s suggestion. He pointed out that higher pay would attract able men “ suoii as can make shift for themselves, keep themselves clean without, vermin and noisomeness, which breedeth sickness and mortality, all which could be avoided.” And speaking as an experienced naval commander he added: “There is no captain or master exercised in service but would undertake with more courage any enterprise with 250 able men than with 300 of tag and rag, and assure himself of better success.” Hawkyns was concerned not only to improve the health and cleanliness of the seamen, but also to encourage the growth of self-respect and a spirit of self-reliance. Nothing could be better calculated to work in this direction than the establishment of a. common insurance fund, raised by the contributions of the men themselves and administered by their own representatives. THE CHATHAM CHEST, This fund, which. was variously alluded to in the earlier years of its existence as “ the collection money,” “ the defalcations,” or, “ the poor’s chest,” finally, acquired the official designation of “ the chest at Chatham." In theory the contribution's were. voluntary, the scheme being said to have been instituted at the request of the men. But in practice, it must have been indistinguishable from a compulsory scheme, since it cannot be supposed that individuals were ever asked whether they wished to contribute to the'fund or given the option of contracting out. There were, however, no •reluctant employers to be persuaded or coerced. The employer was the State, and since it was not proposed that the State should make any contribution to the scheme, beyond allowing certain warrant officers to undertake the duties of management in their working hours, the whole cost of the benefits came out of the 'recently increased wages, the State being thus relieved of a substantial burden.

On the side of the seamen the scheme seems to have won immediate apd universal acceptance. In all the naval papers which have come down to us from the days of the Armada onwards there seems to be not the slightest hint that anyone ever questioned the desirability of the arrangement or was unwilling to pay his contribution to the chest. The reason is plain: instead of being dependent on Royal generosity or public .assistance, or being forced to apply for a license to beg, the wounded or disabled seaman could turn to the governors of the chest feeling that he was not asking for charity at all.- The manifold advantages thus obtained left ho room for argument. ADMINISTRATION. All seamen and shipwrights receiving 10s a month and upwards paid sixpence, “ gromets ” (ships’ boys) receiving 7s 6d paid fourpence, and boys receiving 5s paid threepence. The funds were placed in an iron chest with five locks, the .keys of which were in the hands of one of the principal officers, one of the masters attendant at ■the dockyards, a master shipwright,' a boatswain, and a purser. The practical business was left to the last four, who were supposed to be changed every year at the annual meeting. The governors met, quarterly to hear applications, and in the intervals the clerk of the chest had power to give temporary relief to applicants bringing a certificate from the 'officers of their ship to show_ that they had been injured in the service of the Navy. Injured men were carried ashore from their ship to the nearest public house, where the victualler looked after them at a fixed charge of ,6s a week.. Though this sounds an absurdly small sum, it 'must be remembered that the pay of a clerk in the Navy Office at this period was only 8d a day, and he was supposed to be able to marry and bring up a family. The governors paid not only this maintenance charge, but also the l surgeon’s fees, and when the patient was discharged they would dispose of the case either by payment cf a lump sum or the awarding of an annual pension, the amount of which depended on the surgeon’s report as to the extent-of disablement. Occasionally also they would make a grant for ■the purpose of equipping the man to earn his own living. A CASE. ; An interesting example of the governors’ methods is the case of John Conditt, an apprentice, who injured his thigh while working on the good ship Crane. He was under treatment for five months, and his maintenance <}ost the chest £6, in addition to which the governors made a grant of £5 in compensation for the injury and 10s travelling expenses to enable him to return home. They also paid £3 10s to the master in compensation for the loss of his apprentice’s time, and promised that as soon as the lad’s articles of apprenticeship should expire they would buy hini a boat so that he could earn his .living as a waterman. The surgeon’s fees must have been heavy, and the whole case can hardly have cost the chest less than £25. The earliest extant account books cf the chest show that for the seven years 1637-43 the amount distributed in benefits was £5,508, and the administrative expenses were only £523, a mere per cent. During the 'first Dutch war, 1651-54, the distribution reached £lO,000 in a single year. The chest continued its beneficent work until the beginning of the nineteenth century, when its estates were amalgamated with those of Greenwich Hospital.