Hand in Hand fire insurance plaque

In the late C17, after the Great Fire of London of 1666, insurance companies were set up to provide fire protection for building owners. For an annual premium the companies made available their own fire service of men and machines to deal with fires at their insured buildings. In the early 1700s the companies began to mark their buildings with a "fire mark" or "fire plaque". These were made of thin copper plate, tinned iron sheet, or cast iron. The plaques made insured buildings more readily identifiable to the fire brigades and were a form of advertising. The Hand in Hand company was an early company founded in London in 1696. It was very successful, securing clients across the country. In 1905 it was incorporated in the Commercial Union Group. The plaque shown above is on an eighteenth century building in Monmouth.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Lumix FZ1000 2

Fire insurance plaque, Ross on Wye

House fire insurance in England began in the late seventeenth century, perhaps spurred on by the Great Fire of London (1666). It worked much as insurance does today (though some companies also had their own fire engines) with risk calculated by the insuring company and premiums paid regularly by the owners. In 1680 the London rate for timber built houses was twice that for those built of brick. Companies advertised themselves by fixing a plaque to insured properties. These were made of  lead, copper plate, tinned iron or cast iron. Designs usually included the company's emblem and name. Some had the specific insurance number too. The photograph shows one such plaque on the Man of Ross Gallery in Ross on Wye, Herefordshire. The building dates from the seventeenth century but the plaque, as far as I can ascertain, dates from the late eighteenth or early nineteenth century.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Lumix FZ1000 2