East Sussex: fire insurance plaques

I spotted one of these fire insurance plaques the last time I was in East Sussex and during my latest visit I saw three more, two in the lovely old historic town of Alfriston and the other, the one shown at the bottom of this post, was attached to the 15th century Bridge Cottage in Uckfield.

Fire insurance only came into being after the devastating London fire of 1666. The Phoenix Fire Office was the first company formed, in 1680, followed soon afterwards by several other companies: established in 1710, the Sun Fire Office was one of the earliest, while Guardian Fire and Life was not founded until much later, in 1821.

Each of these insurance companies operated its own fire brigade so they needed a quick and easy way for their firefighters and assessors to identify which buildings were insured with their company. The plaques, originally made of lead but later also made of iron, tin and other materials, were the solution.

Some plaques, like the two Guardian signs shown here, simply displayed their company’s name and insignia; others, like the Sun Fire Office sign below, also included a number for easy reference to their customer ledgers.

Helpfully though, fire brigades didn’t just extinguish fires in buildings displaying their own plaques – after all, a fire could easily spread to an adjoining building that was insured by them – so they would fight a fire in any building displaying a mark and charge the other insurance company for their efforts.