Tom Johnston (Scottish Politician) - The City of Glasgow Friendly Society (now Scottish Friendly)

The City of Glasgow Friendly Society (now Scottish Friendly)

On 17 October 1912, Tom Johnston was welcomed to the Board of the City of Glasgow Friendly Society (now Scottish Friendly). John Stewart had established the Society as a breakaway movement from the Royal Liver Friendly Society some 50 years previously, with the intention of providing a "safe and sound means of investment for the working classes."

Johnston was appointed Vice President of the Society in 1919. On his appointment as Member of Parliament in 1922, he was warmly congratulated by the Society's board. When many coal miners were unable to pay their premiums during the General Strike, the Society remained supportive, in line with its founding principles; according to Johnston:

"The City of Glasgow Friendly Society had a reputation for humane dealings with its members. We really did try to live up to the word 'Friendly'. So when the miners couldn’t pay their premiums, we helped them instead of lapsing them. We were possibly the only office not to lapse a miner during those strikes."

On 10 October 1932, almost 20 years after joining the Board, Johnston was appointed Deputy and successor to James Stewart, the son of the Society’s original founder. A brochure printed to mark the Society’s 70th birthday indicates the high regard with which Johnston was held:

"The task that faced the Board in making this appointment was no light one. To preserve the continuity of success and management it was essential to secure a man, not only intellectually capable, but who was also imbued with the ideals of the Society. The long association of Mr. Johnston with the Society as a Delegate and a Member of the Board, and his outstanding qualities which have made him so prominent a figure in the public life of this country, singles him out as the one person to assist the General Manager and ultimately to fill as adequately as it is possible the office of General Manager. This choice was the unanimous one of the Board."

Though an active politician and MP, Johnston devoted considerable time to the Society, and proposed novel ideas about life assurance. In December 1933, he addressed the Glasgow and West of Scotland Faculty of Insurance, where he introduced the idea of an all-in social insurance scheme, covering unemployment, health and pensions. In effect, the Society played a role in shaping the life assurance movement and what is now known as the Welfare State.

The following year, in 1934, James Stewart retired as General Manager of the Society and Johnston took over. With the Society facing ever-rising administration costs as many of their members relocated to England in search of work, Johnston worked out proposals for co-operation between the collecting societies, proposing a Sub-Committee be formed. Despite opposition, in October 1934, Johnston was elected to the Executive of the Association of Collecting Friendly Societies. He went on pressing for his Sub-Committee until 1938 when, in view of the reluctance of some of the larger societies to participate, he decided that no useful purpose would be served by proceeding with it.

One of the big changes that occurred during Johnston’s management was the improvement of Society staff conditions. It was the first of its group to give the staff alternative Saturdays off, and it introduced a special bonus system. On several occasions the Board proposed salary increases for the General Manager, but on each occasion Johnston refused. In March 1938, for example, the Board proposed to increase his salary by £500 a year. As Johnston knew there would have to be economies among the lower tiers of staff, he refused the increase.

In 1941, Tom Johnson was appointed wartime Secretary of State for Scotland by Prime Minister Winston Churchill but continued to work for the Society and the principles for which it stood.

When Sir William Beveridge was asked to make a report on Industrial Assurance, Tom Johnston came back to the campaign he had been waging among the members of the Association of Collecting Friendly Societies. The report Social Insurance and Allied Services (known as the Beveridge Report) served as the basis for the post-World War II welfare state put in place by the Labour government elected in 1945.

Responding to the Beveridge Report, a letter to the Association of Collecting Friendly Societies from David White, the Interim General Manager of the Society, reiterated the need to remove some of the unnecessary costs of Industrial Assurance: “My Board does not believe it possible or desirable to defend a system of collection which involves 20 or 30 offices collecting in almost every street in the land: in thousands upon thousands of instances two or three offices sending or permitting agents to collect in the same houses, and in extreme cases the same Society sending or permitting two of its agents to collect in the same houses.”

The letter goes on to remind the Association of the attempts by Tom Johnston to get a Sub-Committee appointed.

In 1946, after 34 years’ active service, Johnston retired as General Manager of the Society. But he did not give up his connection and continued as a director of the Trustee Company, which held the Society’s investments.