ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF REPRESENTATION

Press, Issue 30247, 27 September 1963, Page 18

ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF REPRESENTATION

One hundred years of representation in Canterbury of the London and Lancashire Insurance Company, Ltd., has been completed by Pyne, Gould, Guinness, Ltd. This anniversary was celebrated at a dinner last evening at which officers of the insurance company made a presentation to Mr D. W. J. Gould, managing director of Pyne, Gould. Guinness, Ltd. The association between these two companies dates from September 21, 1863, when the insurance company appointed Mr John Lewis as its agent in Canterbury, and granted him a power of attorney to do business on the firm’s behalf.

The Canterbury agency was the first granted outside England by the company, which had issued its first policy only one year earlier. Mr Lewis anil Mr Joseph Gould, uncle of Mr D. W. J. Gould, went into partnership in 1878 as Lewis and Gould. After the retirement of Mr Lewis, Mr John Beaumont came into the company, and the name was changed to Gould, Beaumont, and Company. Mr Beaumont returned to England in 1893, and in the same year Mr George Gould, who had been farming in Canterbury, sold his farm and came into Gould, Beaumont and Company. The firm continued ‘ to trade under this name until its amalgamation with Pyne and Company and Guinness and Le Cren, of Timaru, in 1919 to form the present firm. The “London and Lancashire” stems from the 1861 insurance boom after the disastrous Tooley street fire in London. On June 22, 1861, the warehouse area near Lon-

don Bridge was destroyed by this fire at a cost to the insurance companies of the colossal amount —for those days—of £1,250,000.

A number of businessmen and property-owners realised the need for insurance as an essential protection for expanding trade and prosperity, and more than 40 companies were floated. The “London and Lancashire” was one of these. Growth of Business Since the appointment of Mr Lewis as Canterbury agent in 1863, the company’s representation in the province has remained in the hands of Pyne, Gould, Guinness, and its predecessors, and the business done has increased enormously. The "London and Lancashire” was formed purely as a fire insurance company, and in its first year the total premium income was £24,000. Since then the company has kept pace with the tremendous development in every field of fire, marine, and accident business.

In 101 years of business the total premium income of the company has increased from £24,000 to £42,300,000. At the end of 1862 the firm’s reserve funds were £ll9l, but in the latest consolidated balancesheet they total £89,014,000. It is appropriate that in this centennial year the insurance company’s Christchurch manager, Mr E. C. Ellison, should hold the office of chairman of the Canterbury Fire and Accident Underwriters' Association. Mr Ellison has a record of 43 years' continuous service with the company, and the assistant manager, Mr C. H. Clemens, has been with the firm for 47 years. Both started with tile old firm of Gould, Beaumont and Company.