A history of the RMBF

For 175 years, the RMBF has been providing practical assistance for those in need. As the medical profession has changed, so has the RMBF.

Early Days

The Royal Medical Benevolent Fund was started in 1836 by members of the Provincial Medical and Surgical Association (which was to become the British Medical Association).  From the first the Fund prided itself on its non-contributory nature.  In other words funds were donated rather than exacted, and all practitioners were eligible for assistance irrespective of whether they had ever paid money in to the charity and regardless of their membership or otherwise of the Association.  Small sums to a handful of applicants in the years 1837-1843 were quickly augmented, and by the early 1850s the Fund was distributing over £400 per annum in both one-off grants and regular ‘pension-style’ payments.    

Victorian Orphans

Beneficiaries of the Fund in the second half of the nineteenth century tended to fall into three broad categories.  First, elderly or frail doctors were supported as their ability to earn a living declined.  Second, widows of medical men were provided with money to live independently (and so avoid the need to apply for other charities or, worse still, register for poor relief). Third, orphans of medical men were assisted, but this element of the charity had a surprising feature: the majority of the orphans were adult women, rather than children. The charity was recognising the limited opportunities for women in Victorian England.  Unmarried daughters of doctors had few careers open to them, and none that allowed women to earn very much.  If medical fathers failed to leave savings, a legacy or annuity for their womenfolk, these adult orphans could find themselves impoverished, in a world without a welfare state or a pension system.  Widows and orphans formed by far the largest group of beneficiaries of the RMBF towards the end of the Victorian era.  In the 1880s, 90 percent of grants were made in these categories.

War and Peace

The fund received its ‘Royal’ prefix in 1912 and employed staff from 1915; up to that point, it had been run entirely voluntarily.  But the onset of war posed new problems and the Fund developed new ways to assist beleaguered practitioners.  In 1915 a War Emergency Fund was set up to help medical families in temporary straits due to the war, and by the time of its closure in 1928 it had distributed over thirty-five thousand pounds.  In the 1930s the Fund’s Centenary Appeal sought special donations ‘towards training the widows and orphan sons and daughters of medical practitioners to enable them to be self-supporting’.  Then in 1940 the RMBF jointly administered a War Emergency Fund with the British Medical Association.

New Millennium, New Needs 

The medical world has changed enormously since we were first established. For example, we entered the 21st century with record numbers of female and ethnic minority doctors.

However, we also entered the new century with unprecedented levels of medical student debt and ever increasing litigation, not to mention rising government, media and patient expectations and evidence of increasing stress and disillusionment within the profession. It is perhaps no surprise that the largest number of applications for help now come from doctors themselves, rather than their families.

To respond to this changing world, we have already taken a number of important initiatives, alongside our traditional financial support for doctors and their dependants in need.

These include:

• Specialist Money/Debt Management Advice
• Research among working doctors, leading to the development of our website Support4Doctors - a national support website for doctors and their families, providing access to a wide range of specialist advice and support.  
• Our Money4Medstudents website for medical students - to help them qualify with a more manageable level of debt after 5 - 6 years of medical study.