Consumption Stories 3

Consumption Stories from the Frontline is part of the build up to the centenary of Consumption: Its Cause and Cure, an address by Dr Halliday Sutherland on 4th September 2017. In this third of five articles, Dr Sutherland tells of life at the St Marylebone Dispensary for the Prevention of Consumption in 1911, in his own words.

Part III: The Empty Chair.

From what I saw of the poor in London, it was clear that many of them were exploited, even in death. When Bill Smith was dying of consumption, the insurance agent came to the door, and suggested to Mrs. Smith that it would be a good thing to insure her husband’s life. It was quite simple. All she had to do was to sign a paper stating that Bill Smith was in good health, and pay the weekly premiums. Then Bill Smith died, and I wrote his death certificate. On these certificates there is a space in which the doctor is asked to state the duration of the illness in years, months, or days. It is not obligatory to give this information, and I never gave it. A few days later the insurance agent called on me. “Sorry to trouble you, Doctor. Just a little matter of business. The company would like to know how long Bill Smith has been ill. They will pay you ten-and-six for the information.”

“And they won’t get it from me,” was my answer. “You insured this man’s life without a medical examination. Now you want to repudiate the contract, and stick to the premiums. Even if Mrs Smith did make a false statement, the one that tempts is worse than the one who falls.”

In other cases, when money was due on the death of an insured person, the insurance agent would have a talk with the undertaker, and it was curious how the funeral cost exactly the amount of the insurance money. The most scandalous funerals are to be seen in the East End of London. A house-to-house collection is made, and the whole street tries to give Bill ‘Awkins a better funeral than the Widow Burton got last week two streets away. There is a hearse drawn by four black horses. The black horses are the only indication that the occasion is a funeral, because the hearse resembles a floral car in the Carnival at Nice. Attached to the back of the hearse is the design in flowers of a full-sized arm-chair – the Empty Chair. When watching one of these spectacles I overheard an old gentleman, obviously much impressed, say to a fellow-spectator, a boy of twelve: “Can you tell me who is dead, my boy?”

“Well, if you asks me, I’d say it was the bloke under them flowers.”

Poor Bill ‘Awkins! In life you often were in want of money, and next week your widow will be destitute. For the first time you are driving in state, and to-day you are leading the only procession in which no-one will ever bear us a grudge for having taken the first place.

From: The Arches of the Years by Halliday Sutherland. Previously posted as Death in the East End.