Temperance Lives

Life Assurance, Drink and Medicine in Britain, 1840-1918

Inbunden, Engelska, 2025

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Beskrivning

This book explains how the rise of temperance life assurance affected ideas surrounding the dangers of drinking and abstinence between 1840 and 1918.James Kneale examines how temperance life insurance - initially a speculative business venture - evolved into a social experiment that played a crucial role in persuading ordinary people, doctors, and insurance firms that abstaining from alcohol was safer than drinking it. Drawing from archival materials, Kneale analyses contemporary stories from teetotallers and high-street temperance businesses, and investigates the broader impact on 'temperance towns' such as Manchester, Exeter, and the settlements of the Pendle area.By charting the evolution of the first temperance life assurance firm the UK Temperance and General Provident Institution (UKT) from its difficult beginnings, to being the eighth largest British life assurance firm by the 1890s, the author demonstrates to readers how quickly social attitudes surrounding teetotalism changed, and why.

Produktinformation

Utgivningsdatum:2025-12-11
Mått:164 x 238 x 24 mm
Vikt:620 g
Format:Inbunden
Språk:Engelska
Antal sidor:320
Förlag:Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
ISBN:9781350529717

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Mer om författaren

James Kneale is Associate Professor of Geography at University College London, UK.

Recensioner i media

James Kneale combines groundbreaking analysis of the business of temperance—life assurance companies—with exhaustive research. This is a marvelous book and an important one. Yes, it matters for temperance scholars but for others too, both in Britain and internationally.

Innehållsförteckning

SECTION 1 ORDINARY TEMPERANCEIntroduction: A man walks into a life assurance office1. Ordinary Temperance2.Temperance TownsSECTION 2 TEMPERANCE LIFE INSURANCE AS SPECULATIVE VENTURE AND SOCIAL EXPERIMENT, 1840-18503. Experiments: Thin and watery and mentally cranked4. Statistics and forms: Those that don’t drink don’t die so fast5. Networks: Proselytizing fervour, minute inquisitorial inquirySECTION 3 IMPROVING TEMPERANCE LIVES, 1850-19186. Improvement: A very business-like argument7. Ordinary lives: The Sceptre sample8. Medicine: An institution for educating the medical menCONCLUSIONS9. Temperance life assurance and the new moderationism