 With Tuke, he was a member of the Ackworth School Committee.The death of a young master in the fever epidemic of 1828 (leaving dependents) led him not merely to ensure that the immediate need was met, but to work methodically for the establishment of a financially sound insurance scheme; this resulted in the Friends Provident Institution (1832), the introduction of whose Rules and Regulations needed to make clear to Quakers that life insurance neither implied a distrust of Providence nor was in the nature of a lottery.He made an impact on both the education of Quaker children, the training of male and female teachers and the education of poor children in York, through the British and Foreign School Society.