A Respectable Occupation: - University of Hertfordshire Research ...

Chapter 1
Introduction
This thesis examines the history of the apothecaries' assistants in the
nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and proposes that their demise
between 1903 and 1923 was brought about by three sets of circumstances
related to the National Insurance Act (1911). First, the Pharmaceutical
Society had, almost from its inception, wished to annex the dispensing of
medicines as part of the profession‘s province. 1 Fortunately for them Lloyd
George when formulating his National Insurance Act in 1911 separated
prescribing and dispensing. 2 The Pharmaceutical Society, seeing an
opportunity, resolutely lobbied parliament during the formulation and
introduction of the Act, to transfer dispensing from the doctors‘ surgeries,
where it was performed by apothecaries‘ assistants, into their own hands.
Secondly, Lloyd George was not prepared to allow the livelihood of the
apothecaries‘ assistants to stand in the way of this transfer and obstruct the
passage of his Bill. The assistants, who numbered only about 4000,
presented an unsubstantial obstacle. They operated under the patronage of
the Society of Apothecaries and consequently believed that the Society
would protect them. Because of this and because they worked as individuals
in doctors‘ surgeries or in hospital dispensaries, they had no other
organisation to protect their interests. Thirdly, the Society of Apothecaries
failed to provide any effective support for their assistants when the
1
J. Anderson Stewart, „Jubilee of the National Insurance Act‟, Pharmaceutical Journal, 189, 5150,
(1962) 35.
2
Hansard’s Parliamentary Debates, fifth series, vol. XXV, 1 May-19 May 1911, cols. 610-677.
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