The Bromsgrove Society - Pride, Preservation, Progress

The Sun and Royal Exchange insured domestic commercial and industrial buildings and their contents. The policies were copied into ledgers and include the following information: policy number, name of agent/location of agency; name, status, occupation and address of policy holder; names, occupations and addresses of tenants; location, type, nature of construction and value of property insured; premium; and renewal date.

The policy registers of the Sun and Royal Exchange remain largely unindexed, but there are two periods covered by name and place indexes. There is a card index to personal names in Sun policy registers, 1714-1731 (Ms 17817). It is arranged by county and alphabetically by name of policy holder within each county. It gives the name and occupation of the policy holder or tenant; the location of the property by county, parish or village (and occasionally street or hous). There is a photocopy of the Buckinghamshire entries at the Centre for Buckinghamshire Studies in Aylesbury. The index to Sun and Royal Exchange policy registers for the period 1775-87 (Ms 24172) has been made available in microfiche form and copies given to most English record offices. There is a copy at the Centre for Buckinghamshire Studies in Aylesbury. It has name, place and trade indexes. These cover the whole country, but Buckinghamshire towns are necessarily grouped together in the place index.

The Sun and Royal Exchange policies give an unrivalled picture of Buckinghamshire towns in the 18th century. The vast majority of gentry and tradesmen took out fire insurance, particularly following the disastrous fires at Buckingham and Stony Stratford. In the course of his work on Buckinghamshire towns, Julian Hunt has transcribed hundreds of fire insurance policies. Many of the policies relating to Amersham, Aylesbury, Beaconsfield, Buckingham, Marlow and, Newport Pagnell and Winslow have been transcribed and added to this website. The Worcestershire towns of Bromsgrove and Halesowen are also represented. More towns will follow in due course.

The London Metropolitan Archive, holds the records of both the Sun and Royal Exchange Insurance companies, both of which insured tradesmen in Buckinghamshire and Worcestershire in the 18th century. The policies of the Sun Insurance Co. survive for the period 1710-1863 (Ms 11936-7: 1262 volumes) and those of the Royal Exchange Insurance Co. cover the periods 1753-9 and 1773-1883 (Ms 7252-5: 173 volumes).