Burial Clubs- Giving Death a Helping Hand

While most subscribers of burial clubs and friendly societies simply wanted to avoid a pauper’s grave, others used the many loopholes in the law and organizational practices to cheat at death and make some quick easy cash. Unscrupulous members of burial clubs committed fraud by falsely reporting the death of a loved one. A few went even further by causing their deaths. Both riskier and more certain of a payoff, murdering a family member provides the undeniable proof of death required by insurance and friendly societies.

With the multitude of accidents, accidental poisonings, and diseases facing the working class of Victorian London every day, those wishing to collect early on their loved one’s policies were spoiled for choice. Death from a dose of arsenic looks enough like cholera to be ruled a natural death at an inquest. Anyone could buy countless poisons from their local chemist with no identification or record of the purchase. Many potentially harmful substances were taken medicinally in small quantities so any overdose could be claimed to have been “self-administered”. The eternally popular fall from a flight of stairs also filled the pocket of greedy beneficiaries. Unless the murderer was very careless, officials only suspected foul play after multiple family members died in close succession, or once enough people connected to the beneficiary died.

The insured could also be enrolled in a policy without their knowledge. The larger insurance companies and friendly societies paid their agents for every policy they sold. The agents, eager for their commission, often did not check with the actually policy-holder, or even require their signature, as long as someone paid the premium. With the high illiteracy rate among the working classes, many friendly clubs helpfully allowed their clients to sign up with an easily replicated “X”.

While greedy murderers killed their insured parents, spouses, and siblings, the most vulnerable were defenseless infants and small children. Over a fourth of children born in the 1850s died before reaching five years of age. Their deaths could be easily excused as smallpox, teeth convulsions, scarlet fever, or accidental overdoses of laudanum which was commonly used to quiet crying infants. A young child cost a family about three shillings a week in food and care, but their death could benefit the family £5-20. The wave of grisly infanticide caused the British government to prohibit children under 6 to be enrolled in friendly clubs and from being insured. In 1850 parliament father restricted the maximum amount for which a child under 10 could be insured at £3. This did not stop the slaughter.

One of the most prolific murderers for the sake of insurance money (at least among those caught) was Mary Ann Cotton who killed three husbands, two lovers, her mother, at least eight of her thirteen children (only two outlived her), and 7 stepchildren before her execution in 1873. All poisoned with arsenic.

Adventure Ideas
Strangely, the members of a small burial club keep dying in alphabetical order by their last name. It’s as though someone is going by the club’s client list.  Just a few more deaths will bankrupt the club founders.

Whenever the representative of a friendly club tries to sign up a new subscriber a ghostly child appears and scares away the client. Is this a warning of a murder to come, a hoax perpetrated by a competitor, or a supernatural misunderstanding?

A successful shipping magnate took out insurance policies on several key employees in his corporation. Three of these employees died mysteriously during a massive financial crisis. It’s no secret their insurance saved his business, but did the magnate kill for the sake of money, or is he being framed?