History
In 1901, a group of workers founded the Reading Work People's Voluntary Hospital Contributory Fund to cover the costs of health care for their members. In 1939, it merged with the Bristol Hospital Fund, and in 1949 it was renamed the Western Provident Association (WPA). In 1992, WPA moved from Bristol to a specially designed building in Taunton, Somerset.
Read more about this topic: Western Provident Association
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“This above all makes history useful and desirable: it unfolds before our eyes a glorious record of exemplary actions.”
—Titus Livius (Livy)
“We don’t know when our name came into being or how some distant ancestor acquired it. We don’t understand our name at all, we don’t know its history and yet we bear it with exalted fidelity, we merge with it, we like it, we are ridiculously proud of it as if we had thought it up ourselves in a moment of brilliant inspiration.”
—Milan Kundera (b. 1929)
“Bias, point of view, fury—are they ... so dangerous and must they be ironed out of history, the hills flattened and the contours leveled? The professors talk ... about passion and point of view in history as a Calvinist talks about sin in the bedroom.”
—Catherine Drinker Bowen (1897–1973)