Royal Liver Friendly Society (or The Liver as its affectionately known)
The Liver was formed on the 24th July 1850 by 9 workingmen in a Public House – the Lyver Inn on St Anne’s Street in Liverpool. It would be a reasonably safe bet that a good number of those original 9 members of Royal Liver were first generation Irish Immigrants, driven over to Liverpool due to the Irish Potato Famine of the 1840s. The first formal name was the Liverpool Lyver Burial Society with the Head Office at Pickop Street. Regrettably due to many changes in Liverpool City Centre Royal Liver’s early origins are no longer there to be seen.
Even after it had evolved into a billion-pound organisation in the 20th Century the business model of Royal Liver was the weekly door-to-door collection of premiums from the mainly poor and, latterly, working classes of the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland. Royal Liver employed close to 5,000 “Men from the Pru” and also had some “Women from the Pru” to enhance its overall operations. These collectors visited members in their own homes to collect premiums and write new business, all largely designed to cater for Funeral Expenses and other Endowment/Savings-type products.
Royal Liver collected cash and visited homes because given the other demands on the weekly household budget in the Victorian, Edwardian and later eras, if those few pence or some few shillings, were not collected regularly and mainly from the woman of the home, they would be spent on other “consumables, including at the local Pub!
The common denominator, especially in the early days, was the desire to provide for a dignified burial when the time came and to avoid the shame and stigma of the Pauper’s Burial which characterised most of the Victorian years in the mid-1800s. John Bates Lawrence is largely credited with having been primarily involved with forming Royal Liver in 1850 and was the driving force behind its rapid expansion in its first 10 years or so. Mr Lawrence “fell out” with his colleagues on the Royal Liver Board and by 1861 he had been sacked and was on his way to New Zealand where he died in 1904 and is buried in Waikumete Cemetery, near Auckland on the North Island.
1886 – 1907 Creation of the Delegation System
In 1885, there was another “sacking” at Royal Liver and this one was to have deeper consequences. Edward F Taunton was the Chief Clerk at Royal Liver’s Head Office and he worked closely with the then two, twin Managing Directors (Managing Secretaries) of the day – James Atherton and Henry Liversage.
They had been granting themselves a lavish lifestyle since the early 1860s, and the sums they were awarding themselves would equate to several hundreds of thousands of pounds in today’s values. Edward Taunton had had enough, and he told them so. Atherton and Liversage sacked Taunton on the spot. This led to a Government Inquiry which saw Atherton and Liversage dismissed and vilified. Taunton was installed as the new Secretary of Royal Liver. Edward Taunton also ushered in the single most influential change in the history of the Royal Liver – the creation of the Delegation System of governance and democratic representation of our policyholders. Under this system, all local policyholders could elect one or more of their number to represent the members of the Royal Liver at its Annual Meetings. That system of governance and member-representation lasted from 1887 until 2011. Indeed, it was one of the final decisions of Royal Liver’s Delegates at the 2011 AGM which brought about the dissolution of the Society after 161 years of proud service to its members/policyholders.
World Wars 1 and 2
- 1,200 members of the Society’s Staff throughout the UK and Ireland joined the Armed Forces in the First World War – that would equate to a ratio of about 1 in 5.
- As the Society’s workforce became depleted by all these call-ups to the colours, the posts in question were taken-up by another army of temporary workers – and in most cases these would have been female workers.
- Royal Liver continued to pay the wages of those members of its Staff serving in the Armed Forces during the War.
- Royal Liver also suspended Forfeiture Notices for those members and policyholders who were falling into financial difficulties so that benefits continued to be paid even though substantial arrears had built-up.
- Sadly, 58 members of the Royal Liver Staff died on active service during the First World War and a similar loss was incurred during the Second World War. The names of all those who fell during both World Wars are recorded on Memorial Plaques which are still displayed in the Atrium of the Royal Liver Building.
- During the Second World War, the Royal Liver Building became the Headquarters of part of the Admiralty’s North Atlantic operations as HMS Eaglet oversaw Allied transport across the Atlantic in the face of the U-boat fleets which were awaiting them.
- Liverpool as a major port – and of course Birkenhead also – were both badly scarred by the German Blitzes. Despite several direct hits on surrounding buildings, the Royal Liver Building remained almost untouched. The reasons for this have sparked a number of theories over the years.
- During both World Wars, the Society either donated or invested its members’ monies in an endeavour to assist the war effort and Royal Liver continued to hold what were described as “War Bonds” as part of its investment portfolio into the 1970s.
The post war years – 1950 to 1980
Clearly, the Society’s operations and finances had been impacted and disrupted by the two World Wars and some commentators might take the view that the Society never totally recovered from the events which characterised much of the mid-20th Century. However, in 1950, Royal Liver did celebrate its 100th anniversary and in a letter written as a Foreword to the Commemorative Brochure at the time, Sir Winston Churchill commended the Society for the social contribution it had made to the fabric of life in the British and Irish islands. Royal Liver had grown from its humble beginnings in a Pub in Liverpool in 1850 to become: –
- A £2 million-pound organisation by the time of 1900.
- A £50 million-pound organisation by the time of its Centenary in 1950.
In terms of basic “modernisation”, Royal Liver broke its way into the 20th Century by purchasing its first computer in 1967. It was an IBM machine which would probably have occupied a large footprint in the Building as it was quite a substantial piece of equipment for its day in common with other machines of its type and vintage.
The Queens Silver Jubilee 1977
Looking back now, the 1970s as a decade must have come as something of a blessed relief after the tumultuous times of the 1940s, 50s and 60s. Clearly though, as a Financial Services organisation, “The Liver” did not welcome the hyper-inflation of the early and mid-1970s.
However, despite all the political, labour-relations and social unrest of the 1970s, the Queen and Prince Phillip arrived at the Pier Head on a hot afternoon in June 1977. The Royal Couple had sailed up the River Mersey on what was then the Royal Yacht Britannia and embarked on dry land to a loud and rapturous welcome from all the crowds on the Pier Head and all the Office Staff perched on roofs and balconies in Liverpool hoping to get a sight of the Royal couple as they took the short journey from the Pier Head to the Town Hall at the head of Castle Street, Liverpool.
The Royal visit and the Crowning Glory – 2011
December 2011 saw the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh return to Liverpool to visit the Royal Liver Building and commemorate the Centenary of the Building. It was a very fitting and very enjoyable occasion as it marked not only the 100th Anniversary of the Building but it also marked, quite literally to the month almost, Royal Liver’s exit from the Building after being taken over by Royal London Mutual Insurance Society. Royal Liver Friendly Society itself endured from 1850 until 2011 – 161 years of proud service to its members and policyholders.
This Website and the more detailed and more extensive History of Royal Liver Friendly Society will go on to set out with much greater vividness the origins and development of the Society and also the origins and development of the famous Liver Building which it created.