THE CORPORATION.
An earlier chapter gave some account of the origin and beginnings of
the Royal Exchange Assurance Corporation. It would not be in keeping
with this note on the occasion of the Bicentenary of the Corporation to
enter into those details of profits, advantages and benefits, which are
more suitable to a prospectus. But certain landmarks may well be noted.
The year 1720 was, as we have seen, the difficult year in the history
of the Corporation. It was the first year when the Corporation worked
under its new Charter, and under its present name. It was the one year
of all its two hundred in which for reasons which we have understood
it paid no dividend upon its stock. Yet, during this one year of 1720,
it gave such proofs of courage and vitality as must have inspired all
intimately interested in its operations, with a very stout confidence;
for although the threat of disaster was at the door, its Directors went
blithely on their way, organising the extension of its business.
In 1720 it absorbed the Sadler’s Hall Company, which with a nominal
capital of two millions was unable to obtain a Charter under which it
could do business. In 1721, the Royal Exchange Assurance Corporation
added to the Charter which it already possessed, another, granting it
power to insure for life and against fire. In 1721, it appointed its
first agent. Let us set down the actual date and record the name of
the man, the fore-runner of so many thousands who were to carry on the
torch, each in his turn, through the next two hundred years. On 22nd
May, the Directors appointed Mr. Palmer, of Ockingham, in Berkshire,
its agent.
[Illustration: THE SECOND ROYAL EXCHANGE.
Proof of First Heading on Fire Policies, 1721.]
After that day the Corporation set to work very quickly to extend
its agencies, for on the 31st of the same month it agreed to
appoint “as many country postmasters as are proper to be country
correspondents”; and by the next year, so widely had the system been
increased, that it resolved, by a formal declaration, to undertake no
responsibility in any town of America where it had not already an agent
appointed.
The Corporation’s machinery for dealing with fires was at this time,
primitive as all such arrangements then were. It appointed one man
whose business it was to fix the firemarks upon the houses insured,
and in his odd times to run messages for the office. The firemark
itself was an object of some discussion at the meetings of the Board.
It was too heavy, and it seems there was too much gilding to satisfy
the frugality of the Directors. Mr. Spelman, the Fire Clerk, was
accordingly ordered to provide two new samples from which the Directors
might choose; and he was especially enjoined to inform the Committee
of the exact price of the mark “distinguishing what the lead will cost
and what the gilding will come to.” It seems that the unfortunate Mr.
Spelman, even with this sharp hint to remind him of his duties, could
not restrain his passion for gilding. The Fire Committee accordingly
took the matter out of Mr. Spelman’s hands and ordered “the Plumber
that used to serve the Company to make a model of the mark with a
large crown, and lay the expense before the Committee.” The Plumber
understood his Committee better than Mr. Spelman, and the Firemark with
the large crown, which to-day decorates some of the houses originally
insured under a policy with the Royal Exchange Assurance Corporation,
is the very same mark which was designed in 1721 by that economical and
understanding plumber. Mr. Smith, who founded the plumber’s design,
received 14½d. for each firemark. The ha’penny alone should have been
sufficient by the confidence which it inspired in the economical
management of the Company to have brought hundreds of annuitants on to
those hone stones which paved the second Royal Exchange as they had
done the first.
To the one fireman and messenger combined were shortly added others,
and we find in the year 1752 that thirty-six firemen, nine porters and
four carmen paraded the West end of the town--it is to be supposed as
an advertisement for the Corporation. It was the custom of those days
to employ as firemen, watermen who plied habitually on the Thames.
These were stout and handy men, although since the Thames was the
general highway of London, it looks as if their ordinary occupation
must have suffered. They wore the liveries of their separate offices,
and those employed by the Royal Exchange Assurance Corporation must
have cut a fine figure when they paraded the West end of the town, in a
livery of yellow lined with pink, with music playing in front of them,
and five shillings in their pockets for their dinners. The custom by
which each separate insurance company kept its own firemen was a bad
one in the public interest. For it meant that if the house in flames
bore the firemark of a different company, the firemen simply went home
and left the building burning. It was not until January 1866, that the
Metropolitan Fire Brigade, as we know it, came into existence.
The Royal Exchange Assurance Corporation stands to-day its own
evidence and justification. It was the first Insurance Office to
extend its work to the troubled country of Ireland, where fires were
more than ordinarily common, for it opened its first office in Abbey
Street, Dublin, in the year 1722: and it retains to-day by the activity
of its agents and the extension of its business that pre-eminence which
its priority in time first gave to it. Of late years it has undertaken
much work which in other days would have been deemed quite outside the
scope of an Insurance Corporation. It was the first Insurance Office
in England to set up a Trustee branch. This was in 1904, when as yet
there was no Public Trustee, and many a legatee’s affairs were plunged
into confusion by the death or business inexperience of an Executor.
Thus, though not a philanthropic institution, the Corporation has
pursued its business by beneficent means. It has seen companies--such
as that which was originated by the famed Mr. Montague Tigg--blaze for
a moment in a false prosperity and then disappear. It has remained
proud in its antiquity, faithful to its traditions, and yet alert to
each new development of the machinery of life which could strengthen
its foundations and extend its influence. It has survived the most
momentous changes and the most difficult crises in the national life
of Great Britain. Yes, but self-preservation is not everything. For a
Corporation to live for two hundred years is very well in itself; but
to live at the end of that time amidst the increasing confidence and
good will of those who have entrusted their interests to its care is a
greater matter of which the Royal Exchange Assurance Corporation may
well be infinitely proud.
A. E. W. MASON.
JAS. TRUSCOTT & SON, LTD., London. E.C.
Transcriber's Notes:
Italics are shown thus: _sloping_.
Variations in spelling and hyphenation are retained.
Perceived typographical errors have been changed.