The insurance companies were London-based, but the assets insured could be
anywhere in the UK.
We have learned that Sun Insurance policies on provincial properties have
the prefix CD ('country districts'), we can filter the policy numbers column
to get a fix on them. 2673 out of 25670 entries, ie well over 10 per cent,
relate to provincial policies. (And that's not even looking to see if any of
the other insurers covered 'country districts' - they probably did.)
Ref arsonists: many of the policies contained a Jews Clause. Please see
George Rigal's explanation below.
from 1813 some policies taken out by Jews had a special Jews clause, which
appeared more frequently as time went on. It appears as the words 'Jews
Clause' at the end of the policy or it is given in full, being some
variation of 'No goods paid for which are stolen or lost by removal at or in
consequence of a fire or alarm of fire'.
I do hope that this information is helpful.
With thanks to Petra Laidlaw for providing the answers to Jill's posting.
Louise Messik, London
-----Original Message-----
Subject: Early London Insurance Policies
From: jill.whitehead@...
Could the compilers of the George Rigal data indicate if this information
literally only relates to families living in London? As London was the
capital city, is it possible that families who lived in other UK cities
could have taken out an insurance policy via a company based in London?
If this is only London based, are there other sources of information for
provincial insurance policies? In my case, I am interested in Edinburgh,
Liverpool, Manchester, Southport, Hull, Grimsby, Sheffield, Middlesbrough,
and Harrogate.
I have a contact in Chicago who has discovered that his turn- of- the- 20th
century ancestor was a Jewish arsonist in Boston who tried to make money
from insurance policies. He had an article published in Avoytanu in 2013 on
this topic. This sounds more of an American than UK thing but I am informed
that his family's research showed that some Jewish arsonists did operate in
London at the time.
Jill Whitehead, Sutton, Surrey
