Website produced and maintained for the Hungerford Historical Association
by Hugh Pihlens

You are in [Themes] [Fires & fire-fighting] [Fire-marks]

The Great Fire of London in 1666 devastated one third of the city, and reduced to ruins over 13,000 houses and 89 churches. It was soon realised that there was a need for the provision of compensation on a greater scale than simply a collection at the local church.

The earliest fire insurance was provided by The Phenix fire office in 1680, but it ceased business in 1712. Other insurance companies developed, and it was necessary to identify those properties for which premiums had been paid. The fire mark was created to mark these buildings with the identification of the insurance company. The first examples were made of lead, and some hundred years later followed by copper, tinned iron, zinc, brass and ceramic. This practice carried on for two hundred and fifty years.

There were approximately two hundred insurance companies that issued over nine hundred fire marks, some only one and others as many as forty-odd different variants. Those in Hungerford include some original, and some modern additions:

Further reading:

Fire-marks, John VinceBrian Wright, Shire 1973

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