Aviva’s golf links
Today the US Open gets underway at Torrey Pines and I thought it would be a good excuse to publish a short blog on Aviva’s golfing links (couldn’t resist it).
I’ll tee off with the key golf fact from my collection of Aviva trivia — an Aviva member of staff invented the first recorded portable golf tee. William Gibson Bloxsom (pictured below), and his friend Alexander McDonald, patented a portable golf tee in 1889.
It was not like a modern tee but consisted of three rubber prongs which held the ball and a rubber base which sat on the ground rather than sticking in to it. Mr Bloxsom had started his insurance career with Standard Life in around 1864 aged 17, moving six years later to be inspector of agents in Manchester for the Reliance Mutual Life Assurance Society. Reliance Mutual Life later became part of Aviva as did Mr Bloxsom’s next employer, the Scottish National Insurance Company.
By 1889, when his tee was patented, he had founded his own insurance company, Scottish Metropolitan, which also later became part of Aviva. William Bloxsom was only 29 when he set up his own company and his inventive nature was evident in some of his early business decisions. He initially decided not to use agents to sell his company’ policies but soon realised that he could not get sufficient new business to keep the company afloat. On a more successful note, he also pioneered the practice of paying claims immediately on proof of death rather than making claimants wait 6 months as other life offices required at the time.
Despite his busy insurance career, Mr Bloxsom found plenty of time to spend on the golf course and became known in certain circles for his golfing feats. In 1874, along with Bob Ferguson, he played 16 rounds of the eight-hole course at Musselburgh starting at 6 am and finishing at 7 in the evening. In July the following year, Bloxsom played 12 rounds in one day at the Royal Aberdeen Golf Course. Starting at 6 am he finished at around 9.30 in the evening. As he had challenged himself to play twelve rounds and then walk 10 miles in less than 24 hours, he then left the links and walked from the first milestone on the Deeside road to the sixth at Milltimber and back to the Schoolhill Aberdeen where he arrived at around 1.15 am. According to the minutes of the Aberdeen Golf Club, it was calculated that he walked 32 miles between the 180 holes in his 12 rounds of the fifteen-hole course.
Clearly Mr Bloxsom is a hard act to follow; none of my remaining golf-themed facts quite manage to live up to the highs of his golf tee invention and magnificent rounds of endurance golf. We do, however, have a couple of members of our staff with links to the Walker Cup. Norwich Union’s Edinburgh branch manager, William Breck Torrance, was in the British team which was beaten 8–4 by the US in the first ever Walker Cup competition in 1922. Mr Torrance also represented Scotland 10 times in amateur matches against England and Ireland and tied for 10th place in the 1927 Open Championship.
Another Norwich Union staff member, Gordon B Peters, was in the 1936 British Walker Cup team which was the first to win the trophy away from the Americans. He may be in one of the two photographs below, which show staff at work at the Glasgow branch in 1940, and he eventually became manager there in 1948.
Although almost certainly playing off a slightly higher handicap, many other members of staff in our constituent companies enjoyed a game of golf.
Some of them played with more success than others, as you can see from this photograph of a General Accident golfer in 1976.
The earliest staff golf team I have managed to find belonged to North British and Mercantile and was established in 1889. Company golf club members competed annually for this lovely medal — complete with crossed golf clubs.
More of our Scottish constituent companies had established staff golf clubs by the early 1890s such as Scottish Union and National, whose staff competed for the McCandlish Quaich from 1891, and Scottish Accident whose staff members are virtually unrecorded apart from the names on their golf cup which was first awarded in 1893.
Although these early clubs were established for all-male staff it was not long before our companies employed women who then also formed their own sporting teams. The photograph below shows General Accident’s ‘ladies golf team’ in 1939.
I have not been able to find any of our constituent companies insuring famous golfers but I did find some tenuous links to players of international standing. General Accident used Nick Faldo in advertisements for their sponsorship of the European Open Golf in 1993.
Commercial Union’s sponsorship of the Junior World Cup for golf in the early 1980s brought them in contact with José María Olazábal who, along with his partner, won the tournament in 1982 at the age of 16.
Despite the dearth of famous golf names, our companies have certainly insured a fair number of enthusiastic amateurs over the years. These included King George VI who had a golfers’ comprehensive policy with General Accident from 1937 to 1951. According to notes found in the archive, the company was so proud of this that the original proposal form was framed and hung in the board room.
The type of policy taken out by the king covered golf bags and clubs against fire and theft, provided repair or replacement for damaged clubs, included personal accident cover for the golfer, and third party cover for damage or personal injury caused while practicing or playing golf.
Many of our companies produced similar specific golfers’ insurance covering public liability (spectators hit by balls) and loss or damage to clubs by fire, theft or breakage.
I love the advertisement above produced by Norwich Union in 1934 and the one below from General Accident in 1945 which was aimed at people heading back out to the golf course after the war.
Scottish Insurance Corporation produced this helpful reminder of potential hazards faced by golfers in 1929…
… while many companies issued promotional golf score cards like these ones produced by General Accident.
From at least the 1960s, our companies offered hole-in-one insurance to help players picking up a large bar tab if they hit a hole-in-one: in 2007 Aviva in Canada introduced the same cover for sponsors of golfing tournaments.
There are also golfing references in claims made under our personal accident policies; as early as 1902 General Accident’s proposals specifically referred to providing cover for people while playing golf (in addition to cricket, tennis, croquet, polo, hockey, lacrosse, cycling, riding or while walking on any road). In 1907 Railway Passengers Assurance reported paying out £82 15s in compensation to an Inspector of Schools from London who slipped playing golf; Scottish Accident paid £13 in 1904 to a Commission agent from Belfast who “ruptured” a muscle in his leg while getting out of a bunker.
The company also produced specific advertising to encourage golfers to insure against accidents to their caddies.
The same year, General Accident also produced a specific policy to cover golfers against accidents to their caddies.
I hope you’ve enjoyed this slice of Aviva’s golfing history and if you have any Aviva golfing stories of your own please do let me know.
