The Kindly Ones (TKO) begins with young Jenkins helping Albert lock-up for the night. Jenkins examines “a coloured picture, fastened to the wall by four rusting drawing-pins, of Mr. Lloyd George, fancifully conceived as extending from his mouth an enormous scarlet tongue, on the liquescent surface of which a female domestic servant in cap and apron, laughing heartily as if she much enjoyed the contact, was portrayed vigorously moistening the gum of a Health Insurance stamp.” [TKO 5/1]

Unidentified, “The stamp that wants a lot of licking… and the man.”
(PZ617/12 Post Card Collection)
Unidentified, “This stamp will take a bit of licking.”
(PZ6177/12 Post Card Collection
© National Library of Wales

Health Insurance stamp postcard, 1911

David Lloyd George (1863-1945),  was a Liberal cabinet minister from 1906 to 1916.  He proposed a National Health Insurance Act in 1909. It was passed in 1911. Each week every worker contributed four pence and the employer added three pence to purchase an insurance stamp; general taxation funds contributed another two pence. Later Lloyd George was British Prime Minister from 1916 to 1922.