Page contents

1. Foundation
2. The First Fifty Years
3. 1836 to 1936
4. The Last Fifty Years

1. Foundation

The Norfolk and Norwich Benevolent Medical Society (NNBMS) was founded on 26th April 1786 when Edward Rigby, then assistant surgeon to the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital, invited nine local apothecaries and surgeons to a meeting. The venue is not recorded but was most probably his house, now renumbered 54, in St. Giles Street, Norwich. There had probably been discussions and consultation between those invited prior to the meeting at which it was unanimously resolved that "a subscription be set on foot and recommended with a view to establish(ing) a fund for the relief of Apothecaries and Surgeons resident in the County of Norfolk and City of Norwich" and that this be known as the Benevolent Medical Society.

Rigby had prepared for the meeting a draft of "15 laws and regulations", a copy of which survives, that was unanimously adopted. It was resolved that a copy be sent to "every other surgeon and apothecary" in Norfolk and Norwich inviting them to join and subscribe to the Society and that a copy be sent to a number of local layment of eminence inviting them to subscribe to the Society also. A notice of the formation of the Society was in addition sent to the local Press for publication on "the next Saturday". While subscriptions of any value were welcomed the inaugural laws laid down that any apothecary or surgeon who wished his widow or children to benefit from the charity of the Society should subscribe a minimum of one guinea annually (for changes in the purchasing power of the £1 during the life of the Society see Appendix 3).

While it was Edward Rigby's initiative that led to the Society's formation and he is rightly regarded as its founder, the nine apothecaries and surgeons that he invited to the meeting on 26th April 1786 are constitutionally co-founders and were as follows. Five came from Norwich, E. Norgate, W. Athill, W. Back, J. Keymer and H. Fleming. Four came from the County, J. Jones of Fakenham, J. Rogers of Watton, C. Bendy of Coltishall and E. Manby of North Walsham and later of East Rudham. From among their number they appointed at their first meeting on 26th April the officers and committee laid down in the laws and regulations.

Elias Norgate, a highly respected Norwich surgeon of the day and prominent in civic life, was elected the Society's first President and Treasurer. He had a large practice, was leader of the Whig party in the city and served as its Sheriff in 1781 and Mayor in 1785, the year prior to the Society's foundation. J. Jones, a surgeon of Fakenham, was elected Vice-President and Edward Rigby, Secretary.

The officers and committee met for the second time four months later, on 7th August 1786, two days before the first Annual General Meeting (AGM) and dinner. These, with the dinner at 2/6d per head, were held at the Angel Inn, a coaching inn which stood in the Haymarket on a site now occupied by part of the Arcade. By then 15 further apothecaries and surgeons had joined the Society and a total of 20 attended. Four Trustees of the Society's funds were appointed (see Appendix 2 vii) and the first of many subsequent changes to the laws was proposed whereby the Society "desirous of testifying its respect to the physicians of the County of Norfolk and City of Norwich wishes to have their concurrence in support of this institution". Rigby, the secretary, was therefore instructed to write to the 16 physicians then practising in the county and city. A list of their names and place of residence, together with those of the 125 apothecaries and surgeons then practising in the county and city is preserved in the Society's minutes and is felt to be of such interest that it is reproduced in Appendix 1. The list is almost identical to that published in Samuel Foart Simmons' The Medical Register for the Year 1783, where the list for Norfolk was prepared for Simmons by a Norwich medical friend. It seems probable that the same list was used for both purposes.

The Society's definitions of a physician, surgeon and apothecary were not clarified until the second AGM in 1787, but are also of interest. "No person shall be considered a surgeon or apothecary unless he shall have secured an apprenticeship for three years or more to a surgeon or apothecary and shall have attended one session at a public hospital and shall have at least have attended one course of anatomical lectures". Physicians were defined as a person "who shall have taken a Degree or obtained a Diploma from a public university". The majority of the 125 listed apothecaries and surgeons would today be termed general practitioners and the contemporary name of "surgery" for their practice premises stems from such a nomenclature. However, a number of men on the list such as P. M. Martineau and Rigby himself, as well as being general practitioners in Norwich, were surgeons in the contemporary sense through their appointments in this capacity to the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital; Rigby was also a member of the then Corpora-tion of Surgeons in London. Correspondingly three of the 16 listed physicians, who held a university qualifying degree only, such as Hill of Wells-next-the-Sea, would today be termed general practitioners. The remaining 13 physicians all held the MD of a university, the Fellowship or Membership of a Royal College of Physicians or an appointment as physician to their local county hospital. J. Beevor, J. Manning, J. Murray and R. Lubbock were among those in Norwich who held the MD and were physicians to the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital. At King's Lynn and Great Yarmouth there were then no hospitals in the contemporary sense, but both R. Hamilton and J. Aikin, were physicians there of distinction. R. Hamilton, a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. settled in King's Lynn after a period as a naval surgeon, wrote a number of medical papers and in 1801 a book on Observations on the Marsh Remittent Fever.

J. Aikin, also an Edinburgh graduate and an MD of Leyden, settled in medical practice at Great Yarmouth in 1784 but eight years later moved to London; he was a scholarly man of letters and earned a place for his name in the Dictionary of National Biography. Thus within four months of the inaugural meeting of ten local apothecaries and surgeons a further 15 had joined the NNBMS, its aims and objectives had been formulated and agreed and its officers appointed, It remains to conclude this chapter with a brief biographical note on its founder, Edward Rigby.

Rigby, a man of Lancastrian stock, was elected one of the Assistant Surgeons to the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital at its foundation in 1771, 15 years prior to the formation of the Society, and in turn served the hospital as Surgeon and Physician. However, he achieved his greatest medical fame in obstetrics for his Essay on the Uterine Haemorrhage, the first edition of which was published in 1776; this essay, first differentiating accidental from inevitable uterine haemorrhage, gained for Rigby a European reputation. He was also an able lithotomist and introduced vaccination to Norwich. As the City's Sheriff in 1803 and Mayor in 1805 he did much for the care of the Norwich poor as well as being the founder of Norfolk's medical benevolent society. He fostered the formation of the Norwich School of Painting and one of his other chief interests was agriculture. He farmed on his estate at Framlingham Earl where, after his death in 1821, he was buried in the village churchyard. Rigby was secretary of the NNBMS from its foundation in 1786 until 1808, its Treasurer from 1809-21 and its President in 1798 and 1805. His bio-grapher recorded that he "attended the annual meetings for 29 years in succession and was only twice absent in 36 years". As well as being the founder of the NNBMS its records show that Rigby also exerted an important but benign guiding influence throughout its formative years.

2. The First Fifty Years

Under the influence of Rigby the NNBMS got off to a vigorous start. At the second AGM of 1787 the proposal of the previous year that physicians as well as apothecaries and surgeons should be eligible for membership was approved and by 1792, six years after its foundation, the Society had 110 members representing eighty per cent of the doctors then practising in Norfolk. Thus a need was felt for its charitable objectives that extended initially only to widows and children of members. Rigby was ably supported by his fellow officers in the Society's administration.

At the end of the first year Norgate was succeeded by Hamilton of King's Lynn as President but remained Treasurer until 1800 when he was succeeded by R. Lubbock, an eminent physician to the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital whose patients included Parson Woodforde of Weston Longville. Lubbock died in office in 1808 at the early age of 48 years and was succeeded as Treasurer by Rigby who in the same year retired as Secretary. His partner in general practice, Page Nichol Scott, who in 1814 became assistant surgeon to the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital, followed him as Secretary and held the office, like Rigby, for 23 years. The laws also laid down that a Patron should be appointed and in 1787 George Walpole, 3rd Earl of Orford, was invited to fill this role. Grandson of Sir Robert Walpole, 1st Earl of Orford, the great prime minister, he inherited in 1751 the property of Houghton and the title from his father, the 2nd Earl. However, he seems a curious choice for the Society to have made in so far that, aside from the eminence of his title, he was an eccentric, prone to bouts of insanity, and allowed his estate to run into debt and Houghton Hall into disrepair. He sold his grandfather's famous collection of pictures to the Empress Catherine the Great of Russia. Apart from the invitation to become Patron his name does not again appear in the Society's minutes until the record of his death in 1791.

In the Society's original rules of 1786 it was stated that two general meetings would be held each year "on the Wednesday in the Easter Sessions Week and on the Wednesday in the Norwich Assize week, at the Angel Inn or some other convenient place in the City of Norwich". However, at the second general meeting of the Society at the Angel Inn on the 18th April 1787 the travelling problems of County members were appreciated and the rules were changed so that the autumn meeting remained in Norwich, but the meeting in the Easter Sessions week altered to "the first Monday in May in every year at the George Inn, East Dereham, this being the most central town in the County". In May 1788 it was decided to change the date of the Dereham meeting to "the Wednesday nearest the full moon in April", a custom of many rural medical societies of the period to aid the journey home, and in 1790 to alternate the spring meeting between Dereham and Swaffham. Thus for the next fourteen years the meetings fell into a regular pattern. The autumn meeting was held in Norwich, at the Angel Inn until 1802 and from 1803-4 at Skeete's Coffee House in the Market Place; the spring meeting was held at either the George Inn or King's Arms, East Dereham, both of which still stand, and alternating with the Crown Inn, Swaffham, a 17th century coaching and livery hostelry which was demolished in 1953. One of the spring meetings and dinners at the George Inn, Dereham, was attended by the 9th Lord Petre, appointed Patron in 1792 following the death of the 3rd Earl of Orford in the previous year. Robert Edward, 9th Lord Petre, was a philanthropic Roman Catholic peer, descended from Sir William Petre, who had lent his assistance to Henry VIII in promoting the Reformation. His seat was at Ingatestone Hall, Essex, but his wife inherited Norfolk estates as co-heiress of her uncle the 9th Duke of Norfolk whereby the Petres acquired an estate at Buckenham Tofts, near Mundford, Its fine stables and park are all that survive for in the Second World War the estate was incorporated in the Stanford Military Training Area and its mansion was demolished in 1946.

Many changes in the "laws and regulations" were made in the Society's early years and they were revised and reprinted in 1787, 1789, 1794 and 1801. Among the changes were the extension of benefits to members if they moved to another county, provided they still paid their subscription, that benefits only be payable to unmarried children of deceased members and an important change, that members of the Society "who through Age and Infirmity may be incapacitated from continuing practice" should be eligible for benefit as well as their widows and children. Law 7 of the original regulations laid down that no benefit be paid "until there shall be raised by annual subscription or benefactions the sum of Five Hundred Pounds" and this was achieved by 1789. From then until 1835 an average of 6-12 persons was paid benefit each year and some of them over a number of years. Examples of the benefits paid were Mr. JC. an "indigent member", £5. 5s. 0d. twice a year from 1789 till his death in 1793; Mrs. JS, a widow, £5. 5s. 0d. four times a year from 1798-1807; Mr. T's four daughters £5. 5s. 0d. four times a year from 1796-1804 then, when one daughter married, the same amount to three daughters till 1808; sometimes a lump sum was given such as £10. 1 0s. 0d. in one payment to Mr. B. in 1796 and one payment to Mrs. S. of £5. 5s. 0d. in 1804.

As capital accrued it was invested in 4% Consolidated Stock and after an initial investment in 1787, a further £100 was so invested in 1799, another £200 in 1809 and so on, so that by 1824 the Society had a capital investment of £2,800 in 4% Consolidated Stock.

Though there had been enthusiastic support for the Society in its early years, this waned in the first two decades of the 19th century. The membership of 110 in 1792 fell to 84 in 1802 and 43 in 1812 though it then remained steady for the next decade and was 42 in 1822. As a consequence the attendance at the general meetings, which had averaged 30-40 in the 18th century, fell and when only seven members attended the AGM of 1804 in Skeete's Coffee House, Norwich, it was resolved to hold only one general meeting a year. So from 1805-26 one general meeting a year was held, but in the same sequence as before of East Dereham, Norwich, Swaffham, Norwich. In 1814 the Norwich venue was changed to the Wool-pack Inn, St. Giles Street, but the dinner was not a success and the following year the Society met at the Norfolk Hotel, a three-sided coaching inn in St. Giles Street which stood on the site now occupied by the multi-storey car park erected in 1966. The AGMs and dinners continued there until 1831.

Following the death of Lard Petre in 1801, the office of Patron remained vacant until 1810. In 1809 Sir Harbord Harbord of Gunton Park, Member of Parliament for Norwich and advanced to the peerage in 1786 as 1st Lord Suffield, was invited to succeed him but he died in 1810 before he could take up office. So his son William Assheton, 2nd Lord Suffield was approached and accepted the office which he held from 1810 until his death in 1821. He was followed as Patron by his brother Edward Harbord, 3rd Lord Suffield, a philanthropist and successively Member of Parliament for Great Yarmouth and Shaftesbury. After inheriting his title and until his death in 1835 he lived mainly on his Norfolk estate, taking a keen interest in local affairs; also interested in sport, he was founder of the Norfolk Cricket Club in1828.

At the AGM of 1820, in an attempt to revive the fortunes of the Society, a major review in the rules was recommended and a committee of J. Yelloly, E. Rigby, L. Evans, P. N. Scott and J. G. Crosse was appointed to undertake the task. A printed copy of these revised rules, dated April 1821, survives in the Society's records when its name was changed to the Norfolk Benevolent Medical Society. The changes were approved at the AGM held in the following month at the King's Arms, East Dereham, but eight further changes were made to them at the AGM of 1822 in Norwich and are recorded in a neat copper-plate hand on the copy of the 1821 revised rules that the Society possesses.

However, this revision of the constitution did not arrest the decline in membership which fell further from 42 in 1822 to 28 in 1832. The decline was especially in County members so that from 1826 no further meetings were held at East Dereham or Swaffham and the AGM for these years was held in May at the Norfolk Hotel, Norwich, followed by a dinner. Yet it was reported that "the number of claimants and the urgency of their wants continue(d) undiminished". Thus as it approached the fiftieth year since its founda-tion, the Society was in a critical financial state and a Special Meeting was convened at the Norfolk Hotel on 30th May 1832 when every member of the Society was exhorted to attend. Seven of the 28 members of the Society so attended. The falling membership was considered to be due to deaths and resignations with failure to recruit new members though no reasons are recorded. Among the seven members present were W. Wright and J.G.Crosse, respectively, the leading Norwich physician and surgeon of the day, who recommended that some immediate measures be taken and that a committee be formed to investigate the status of the Society and make recommendations. The immediate measures recommended were a change in the date of the annual meeting from May to July, cancelling the annual dinner and asking members to pay their annual subscription in advance. Other recommendations of the committee were a revision of the laws and the preparation of a circular to be sent to all doctors in Norfolk and Norwich and to "all charitably disposed and wealthy individuals amongst the public". A copy of this circular, the first document of the Society to be headed by the Society's present title of the Norfolk and Norwich Benevolent Medical Society and signed by J. Goodwin Johnson, 8th June 1832, survives in the Society's records. The main points of the circular were the continued need for the Society, the need to recruit new members and "how advantageous the Society had proved to the families of those subscribers who had the prudence to join it".

Among 14 cases cited, the following are examples:-

The further revision of the laws and the special committee's other suggestions were received and discussed at two special meetings of the Society held in July and August 1832 at the White Swan Inn, opposite the west door of the church of St. Peter Mancroft. Famed as a coaching inn and for its cockpit and playhouse, the White Swan Inn was the venue for the Society's AGMs for the next three years. It ceased to be an inn in the 1880's and its buildings were demolished in 1961 to make way for the present shoppers' car park. At the two special meetings of 1832 held at the White Swan Inn, J. Robinson of Norwich, one of two surviving original members of the Society, was elected President, W. Wright was re-elected Treasurer and P.N. Scott resigned as Secretary. The last was succeeded by J. Godwin Johnson, his partner in general practice since Edward Rigby's death and also, like Scott, a member of the surgical staff of the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital. A new minute book recorded the minutes of the 1832 meeting, the new laws proposed by the Society's special committee were approved and it was hoped there would be a revival of the Society's fortunes.

3. 1836 to 1936

The steps taken in 1832 failed to arrest the decline in membership of the NNBMS which fell from 28 in 1832 to 24 in 1840. However, the Society was able to meets its existing and new requests for relief from its invest-ment income in 1840 of £152 for the year. In 1841 the Society was able to invest a further £106 in "new" 3½ % Consolidated Stock. Two requests for relief in the minutes of the 1836 meeting reflect the needs and circumstances of the time. JS of North Walsham, a member since 1801, applied for relief as he was totally unable to practise his profession, had five dependent children and no income. So "intelligent and respectable a member" was granted £30 a year. Mrs. B. of Birmingham, daughter of AD, a widow with six children and "totally unprovided for" was granted £10 a year.

In 1836 the Society returned to the Norfolk Hotel as its venue for the AGMs, no longer, since 1832, associated with a dinner. Two years later, in 1838, the office of Patron, vacant since 1835, was filled by the Reverend Henry Powlett, 3rd Lord Bayning, of Honingham Hall. He was the second son of Charles Townshend, 1st Lord Bayning, a Whig Member of Parliament for Great Yarmouth and a holder of government posts. He succeeded to the title after the deaths of his father and elder brother. The third baron assumed by royal licence the surname of his maternal grandfather, but he was to be the last Patron for following his death in 1866 no successor was appointed.

The NNBMS had not registered as a Friendly Society under the first Act of this name in 1793, but following significant amendments in the Friendly Societies Act of 1843 it was clearly advantageous for the Society to register as a Friendly Society and take advantage of its provisions. Among them was exemption of its investments from Income Tax, introduced as a permanent fiscal measure in the previous year, 1842, at 7d. in the pound. This was only a fraction of the benefit the Society was later able to achieve with subsequent increases in the rate. In 1843 special meetings of the Society's Committee were held to prepare adjustments of the rules to meet the requirements of the new Act. Several general rules were altered; arbitrators, required by the new Act for cases of dispute within a Society, were appointed (see Appendix 2 ix) and in 1845, the Society was approved and formally registered as a Friendly Society. The Society's investments in Consolidated Stock were transferred to the new Fund for Friendly Societies that gave more favourable financial terms. The immediate consequence was that its investment income increased by £20 per annum.

In 1846, the year following the Society's registration as a Friendly Society, the 14th Anniversary Meeting of the Provincial Medical and Surgical Association was held in Norwich, to which reference has already been made, but in spite of the stimulus of these two events the membership of the Society continued to decline. In 1852 there were 15 members, in 1871-73 there were 7 and after the deaths of 4 members in 1874 the Society reached its nadir with a member-ship of 3. In view of the small number of members the AGMs after 1855 were held in private houses of members, the first being at 71 St. Giles Street, home of the Secretary, J. Goodwin Johnson, who in 1852 took on the additional duties of Treasurer. It is remarkable that during these years of single figure membership fresh Presidents and two Vice-Presidents were appointed annually though, as will be seen from the lists in Appendix 2, many individuals held these offices several times; however, in 1877 the number of Vice-Presidents was reduced from two to one and in 1882 the office was discontinued. The Society also did its best to maintain four Trustees, J. Godwin Johnson being one from 1850-72, although the number lapsed when there were only three members of the Society. The stalwarts who maintained the Society when its member-ship was in single figures were C. E. Muriel, a Norwich general practitioner, Surgeon to the County Gaol and Surgeon-Accoucheur to the Norwich Lying-in Charity, G. Rodwell, a general practitioner at Loddon and Haynes Sparrow Robinson, elected a member of the Society in 1868. First associated with the Norwich Union Life Office in 1865, when he was in general practice at Coltishall, Robinson was appointed a Director of the Life Office in 1884 and became its President in 1906. He later also became a Director and Chairman of the Norwich Union Fire Insurance Society. In 1878, following his election as assistant surgeon to the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital, he moved from Coltishall to Norwich, which he also served as a magistrate. With such professional, financial and administra-tive attainments Robinson was the ideal man to attempt to restore the Society's fortunes when he was appointed Secretary and Treasurer to the Society in 1873 after Johnson, at the age of 77 years, resigned from both offices which he had held for 41 and 21 years respectively. Robinson held office as Secretary and Treasurer for 27 years and largely due to his influence the fortunes of the Society were slowly revived. By 1896, his penultimate year of office as Secretary and Treasurer, the membership had risen to double figures (12) for the first time for 33 years and 20 years later had doubled again to 24.

Throughout these lean years the Society continued to make grants in relief, often to a greater number of beneficiaries than there members of the Society, mainly from its investment income. In 1876 when four grants were made this income was £172. The capital which was then invested with the Commissioners for the Reduction of the National Debt reached £5, 906. In the Society's minutes of the same year, 1876, it was recorded that this was its 90th anniversary, but no mention was made in the minutes of 1886 that this was the Society's centenary year nor was it marked in any way.

In 1893, C. J. Muriel son of C. E. Muriel, was appointed the Society's first Assistant Secretary and succeeded Robinson on his retirement as Secretary and Treasurer in 1897. A Norwich general practitioner like his father, C. J. Muriel was also a physician to the Jenny Lind Hospital for Children when its premises were in Pottergate. Following his appointment, a circular was sent out to try and recruit new members and in 1905 Muriel, together with Robinson, S. H. Burton and G. F. Odhams, were appointed to a committee to revise the rules (previously described in the Society's records as 'laws'). With minor amend-ments the alterations to the rules were approved by the Society in 1906 and were sent to the Registrar of Friendly Societies for his approval. The Registrar declined to approve the changes and correspondence between him and the Society continued over the next five years with the Society obtain-ing legal advice from its solicitor. Members of the Society refused to comply with the changes the Registrar demanded and event-ually he seems to have given way and approved the alterations in 1912. Unfortunately a copy of the revised rules of 1905 has not survived in the records, but they probably included mention of educational benefits to the children of past or present members. This would have been of interest to read, for this topic was often to be a subject of debate at subsequent meetings of the Society. It seems to have been one of the changes, for in 1909 an educational grant of £50 is recorded for the first time to Miss F, daughter of a member, to help her with the expenses of her MA degree at London University.

In July 1914 when the Society held its AGM one month before the outbreak of the Great War, its membership was 21 and a holding of £10,613 with the Commissioners for the Reduction of the National Debt was reported. In the second year of the war the Society resolved to withdraw £8,000 of its holdings with the Commissioners for the Reduction of the National Debt and, like so many patriots of the time, invested £5, 500 of this in 4½ % War Loan (1925-1945) and £3,875 in 2½ % Consolidated Stock "with the object of conversion in accordance with the Government's statement". In 1916 the remaining £2, 740 of the Society's holdings with the Commissioners for the Reduction of the National Debt was transferred to "India" 3% Stock (1948). In 1917 the first mention is made of an Educational Endow-ment Fund, separate from the main fund, and was referred to again at the AGM of 1919. When the first printed balance sheet appeared in 1922, £14,698 stock was held in the General Benevolent Fund and £567 in the Educational Endowment Fund, so the income from the latter must have been small.

Following the end of the Great War in 1918, 16 new members joined the Society between 1919 - 26, making the membership 37 in 1928, the highest figure since the 1820s, though over the same period the total number of doctors in Norfolk had increased also. In 1925 A. J. Blaxland, surgeon to the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital from 1909-46 and during the Great War a surgeon in the Royal Army Medical Corps, was the Society's President. He proposed a 'major review of the objects of the Society, its benefits and rules' and was himself a member of a five man committee appointed for this purpose and whose recommendations were approved at the Society's AGM in 1926.

It is of interest that the 1925-26 revision of the rules made few alterations in the details of Educational Endowments which appear to have caused concern to certain members of the Society, when such grants were given to the children of members in good health and active practice. Among those concerned by these endowments was Blaxland, who himself had been a member of the 1925-26 committee that had recommended no change in them. However, at the AGM of 1931 he proposed that another committee be formed to revise the rules this time "with the object of abolishing the Educational Endowments and of facilitat-ing grants to members incapacitated from carrying on their practice". Twenty-four members of the Society were present at this meeting held in the then home of the library of the Norwich Medico-Chirurgical Society in the Norwich Subscription Library on Guildhall Hill under the chairmanship of the President, Dr. Branford Morgan, physician to the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital from 1928-56. Equal numbers voted for and against the proposal which was carried by the President casting his vote in favour. J. E. T. Pollard, a solicitor and appointed Assistant Secretary of the Society in 1920, drew the attention of the President to Rule 30 of the Society that required a two-third's majority to change the rules, but the President overruled this advice and declared the resolution carried. C. J. Muriel, the Secretary, also questioned the President's ruling and proposed that it be referred to the Arbitrator under Rule 29. This was agreed to by the meeting and is the only occasion in the Society's history when the services of its Arbitrator have been invoked. The report of the Arbitrator, F. W. Cooke, Registrar of the County Court of Norfolk, was received at a special meeting held in September 1931 and was as follows:- "The only effective interpretation of the resolution appears to be that a committee of the members is to be appointed to revise the rules ... and that the committee itself could not make alterations or additions to the rules. Their recommendations would have to be submitted to an annual general meeting and approved by a two thirds majority. In his opinion the chairman's ruling was correct ... Any resolution, other than a change in rules, could be passed under Rule 12 and if the votes were equal the chair-man had the casting vote as well as a vote as a member". It was therefore proposed that a special committee be set up to revise the rules along the lines proposed at the AGM of 1931, but the Secretary, C. J. Muriel, disappointed at the Arbitrator's report, stated that he would be submitting his resignation to the next AGM. This was held in July 1932 at the Bethel Hospital, home of its Super-intendent, the then President of the Society, S. J. Fielding. A. C. Hepburn, a Norwich general practitioner of Orcadian birth, was appointed Secretary in succession to C. J. Muriel who was thanked for his 37 years' service as Secretary but was reappointed Treasurer, thus reverting to the practice prior to 1852 of appointing a separate Secretary and Treasurer. However, the report of the special committee which suggested a change in the rules affecting Educational Grants, though approved by 12 votes to 9, did not achieve the necessary two-thirds majority, and the resolution was lost. C. J. Muriel thereby witnessed the outcome he had desired. In the same year Muriel's work for local medical charity was recognised by his appointment to the College Election Committee of the Royal Medical Foundation of Epsom College and three years later when President of the Society in 1935 he donated £50 to the Society to mark its 150th anniversary in 1936.

The Last Fifty Years

In 1937, two years after his Presidency, C. J. Muriel retired as Treasurer thus bringing to a close a remarkable period of service to the NNBMS by father and son Muriel over 60 years. Muriel senior was one of the stalwarts of the Society when its membership was in single figures during the 1870's and 1880's: he was President on four occasions between 1873-97, Vice-President for eight years between 1863-79 and Treasurer from 1871-1906. Muriel junior's services overlapped with his father's; in addition to his Presidency in 1935, he was Assistant Secretary and Secretary from 1893-1932 and Treasurer from 1897-1937. When he was succeeded as Secretary by A.C. Hepburn in 1932 and as Treasurer in 1937 by J.M. Ridley Thomas, surgeon to the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital from 1930-64, another notable period of joint service was inaugurated. As Secretary and Treasurer the two men guided the fortunes of the Society until 1966 when they both resigned after serving the Society in these offices for a combined total of 65 years, having jointly been members of the Society for 75 years. In addition, A. C. Hepburn served as a Trustee from 1929-31 and J.M. Ridley Thomas as President in 1950.

In 1966 J.M. Ridley Thomas was succeeded as Treasurer by N. A. Green, who had also followed him on the surgical staff of the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital in 1964. In 1971 N.A. Green was in turn succeeded as Treasurer by A. W. McKenzie, Consultant Dermatologist to the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital since 1963, who has held this office since. As successor to A. C. Hepburn, the Secretary, the Society elected one of the partners in his Norwich general practice, J. Beveridge. In making this appointment, the Society was returning to an early formula for the first Secretary, E. Rigby, was succeeded by his partner in his Norwich general practice, P.N. Scott, who in turn was succeeded by his partner, J. Godwin Johnson. Rigby, Scott and Johnson were all in addition surgeons to the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital, for it was not until 1898 that Sir Hamilton Ballance became the first member of the staff of the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital not to engage concurrently in general practice. But whereas in 1966 one tradition of the Society was revived a new one, though unknown to members at the time, was inaugurated when K.A. Latter was elected President. A physician with an interest in neurology to the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital from 1939-71, he also had financial training having worked in the Bank of England prior to commencing his medical studies. He was also Chief Medical Advisor and Director of the Norwich Union Insurance Group and brought to the Society the expertise in medical, financial and administrative matters that were reminiscent of Robinson, with a similar background, a hundred years previously. Such was his success as President that K.A. Latter was re-elected in 1967, the first time that the office of President had not changed annually since 1876, and with J. Beveridge, has been re-elected annually for the 19 subsequent years. Another office holder with long service in the last fifty years has been J.H. Crotch, former senior partner in the solicitors firm of Messrs. Crotch, Brenner and Dunkley, who has been Assistant Secretary since 1948 and has given the Society much wise guidance and support.

With few changes in its main officers since 1936, the Society has continued to discharge the purpose for which it was founded. Annual grants, never to more than five or six persons, and sometimes fewer, have been made to members of the Society, their widows or children, who have been in financial need. The minutes of the Society during the Second World War record the last grants from the Educational Endowment fund, which for many years continued to be a source of contention among members of the Society. None have been made since 1945 and they were statutorily abolished when the Society's rules were revised in 1971 and the monies in the Educational Fund absorbed in the General Fund. Again in the Second World War, as in the Great War, the Society displayed its patriotism by investing in 3% Savings Bonds and other Government securities so that when the war ended most of the Society's capital was invested in War Loan, Savings Bonds or other Government stock. Since then, and especially during the last 20 years with inflation to contend with, a more mixed financial portfolio, with a significant investment in equities has been made by the Society's committee with guidance from the President, the Society's Treasurers and Stockbroker. Through their action and the absence of large demands on the Society's funds these have risen from £23,000 in 1951 to £67,000 in 1971 and currently exceed £117,000. Subscription income has also increased by raising the annual subscription from one guinea to £3 in 1971 and by an increase in the number of members of the Society. All new doctors who settle in Norfolk have been given information about the Society and invited to join. While the response has often been small, the number of members has steadily increased during the last fifty years. At the outbreak of the Second World War the membership was about 60, by 1951 it had risen to 82 and through a significant number of new members joining in the years 1978, 1980, 1981 and 1984 is currently 220. Over the same period there has been a great increase in the number of Norfolk doctors and the present figure represents about thirty per cent of those eligible for membership.

Over the last 50 years the Society has continued to hold regular meetings of its committee and its AGM, either at the offices of the Assistant Secretary at 54/56 Prince of Wales Road or, as in more recent years, at the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital. After an interval of 25 years the rules were revised in 1951 and again in 1958. Then in 1968 the Friendly and Industrial and Provident Societies Act was passed by Parliament which laid down new procedures for the accountancy of such societies. So a committee of the Society was appointed to recommend the necessary changes in the rules and any others thought appropriate that were approved at the AGM in 1971. The rules were last reprinted, with a list of the Society's members, in 1984.

One of the major items of concern to the NNBMS in the 1980s would be a matter of surprise to those who were members of the Society in the 18th and 19th centuries. This concern has been that as the calls upon the Society for medical benevolence are less frequent than they have been in the past and as the accumulation of assets indefinitely is not a function of the Society, what should the Society do with its money? All members were sent a letter by J. Beveridge, the Secretary, in 1983 for their views and suggestions as to how the resources of the Society might alternatively be deployed. The replies have been considered at subsequent AGMs of the Society, but while a number of alternative suggestions have been made, the main one being a use of the Society's resources for some aspect of medical education, the general tenor of the replies has been that the objectives of the Society should remain as at present. Therefore no change has so far been made, but it is a cause for congratulation that in the year the Society commemorates the 200th anniversary of its foundation it is in a state of such sound financial health.