75 YEARS OF SERVICE

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22512, 21 September 1938, Page 8

75 YEARS OF SERVICE

A LONG-ESTABLISHED CITY AGENCY

LONDON AND LANCASHIRE INSURANCE COMPANY

Seventy-five years of continuous representation in Canterbury of the London and Lancashire Insurance Company, Ltd., are to-day completed by Messrs. Pyne, Gould, Guinness, Ltd. On September 21, 1863, a power of attorney appointing Mr John Lewis to act as the company's agent in Canterbury was signed at a board meeting of the company, which had then been in existence for only two years. Since then the company's representation in the province has virtually remained in the one hands, and the business done has increased enormously.

The Canterbury agency was the first outside of England to be granted by the new company, which had only issued its first policy a year before, and the directors of the company are showing tangible appreciation of the attention given their interest for 75 years by the Canterbury agents, by a gift of a small gold couvenir. In a letter to Messrs Pyne, Gould, Guinness, Ltd., the governor of the London and Lancashire Company recalls that the two oldest existing agencies of the company are in New Zealand—in Christchurch and Wellington. Although the Christchurch agency had not always been in the name of Pyne, Gould, * Guinness, Ltd., the link with the company was continuous since the days of Mr John Lewis, through the firm's association with Lewis and Gould, then through Gould, Beaumont and Company, and finally since 1919 with Pyne, Gould, Guinness, Ltd. A brief history of the progress and growth of the London and Lancashire Company is enclosed with the letter of appreciation sent from the headquarters in London to the Christchurch agents. In the first year of the company's existence, 1862, the total net premiums received amounted to £24,069; at the end of 1937 they totalled £6,732,221. The Reserve Fund in 1862 was only £ll9l. At the end of last year it was considerably more than £12,000,000. The company is agent for the free insurance scheme available to readers of "The Press."

The present governor and chairman of the company, Sir Frederick Parcoe Rutter, enjoys the distinction of having spent the whole of his business career in the company's service at the head office. He joined the company as an apprentice in 1873. The company is particularly proud of its success in overseas agencies, and attaches considerable importance to to-day's anniversary—marking 75 years' continuous service of the first overseas agency created.