Tales of coronations past
The coronation of King Charles III will be the 12th coronation since Aviva’s oldest ancestor company, Hand in Hand, was established in 1696. I’ve been looking back through the archives to see how our companies have marked coronations over the centuries.
The first coronation staff at our companies would have witnessed was the coronation of Queen Anne in 1702. Sadly, there is no mention of the event in the surviving records of Hand in Hand but the company’s policy register shows that it provided fire insurance that year for the Royal Wardrobe where the coronation hangings would have been stored. Hand in Hand also insured the designer, carver, and painter of the Gold State Coach which has been used in coronations since 1831.
Coincidentally, the coronation of William IV in 1831 is the earliest reference I can find to offices of our ancestor companies being decorated for a coronation. Contemporary newspapers reported that the Edinburgh head offices of Scottish Union Insurance and Edinburgh Life Assurance were illuminated with “variegated lamps and Spermaceti oil” while the London office of Union Assurance featured “ornamental lamps, prettily arranged”.
I have found no references to the 1837 coronation of Queen Victoria in the Archive Collection, although we have photographs of the Norwich Union office on Surrey Street Norwich decorated for her jubilee in 1887 and the Union Assurance office at 81 Cornhill decorated for her jubilee in 1897.
The coronation of her son, Edward VII, in 1902 was the first for over 60 years and is the first coronation for which we have a photograph of one of our offices decorated. It shows the head office of Northern Assurance at the corner of Union Street in Aberdeen festooned with garlands and flags for the occasion.
Although we don’t have any photographs, we know that Commercial Union’s office on the High Street in Exeter was illuminated with “a couple of stars” for the 1902 coronation and that the Cannon Street office of General Life and Fire Assurance displayed an “electronically lighted crown and stars with letters”.
General Accident’s ledger for 1902 records that the company spent £440 14s 1d on the festivities including £60 decorating the Perth head office, £130 setting up seating at the London office so guests could watch the procession, and £1 and 3 shillings on whisky.
The last-minute postponement of the coronation, due the king’s illness, must have been a bit of a worry for our company Scottish Accident which had already printed special coronation year proposals for its Up-to-date accident, illness, and pension policy. Meanwhile, members of staff at Sun Life were delighted that the company allowed them time off for the two coronation bank holidays, despite the coronation not actually taking place.
For the next coronation, in 1911, we have a photographic record of the General Accident Perth head office in its finery, complete with portraits of the new king, George V, and his queen.
The company also took the opportunity to send postcards to its agents using the very first airmail service, which ran between Hendon and Windsor where King George V had given special permission for the planes to land in the grounds of Windsor Castle to mark the coronation.
General Accident was very proud of its royal links having just been issued with a Royal Warrant as motor car insurer to the king. The company also provided insurance cover for several of the carriages and some of the horses used in the 1911 coronation procession.
Expenditure on this coronation, the second within a decade, seems to have been less extravagant than the one in 1902. Although the board at North British and Mercantile Insurance approved “a sum not exceeding £60 to be expended in decorating the company’s building” General Life Assurance chose to reuse decorations from the 1902 celebrations, which were repaired and suitably altered at a cost of £12. At Northern Assurance, the board looked at sketches for the proposed decoration of the Aberdeen office and agreed to give the contract to Messrs James Allan & Co, “the cost not to exceed £25”. In St Helen’s Square York, the head office of Yorkshire Insurance Company was decorated with flowers and flags for the occasion.
The company also paid for special souvenir coronation booklets, complete with a slightly underwhelming advertisement.
Several insurance companies on Mosley Street in Newcastle, including General Accident and Norwich Union, agreed on a unified theme of decoration. It featured window boxes with red, white, and blue flowers and had been suggested by the Newcastle manager of another of our ancestor companies, United Kingdom Provident.
A similar scheme was adopted by Sun Life’s Newcastle office on Collingwood Street, which seems to have opted for window boxes and hanging plants. These can be seen better in the close-up photograph although I love the street scene which captures more of the city’s decorations as well as the busy delivery boys and carts.
A similar view captures the same branch decorated for the 1937 coronation of George VI with just a glimpse in the foreground of the brushes which had been used to make sure the streets looked their very best for the day. Incidentally, I found several references to coronation celebrations in Newcastle over the centuries: one report, from the 1821 coronation of George IV, refers a wine fountain featuring as part of the festivities and recorded that one young man, after taking his turn at the fountain, “amused the numerous spectators, amongst whom were a great number of well-dressed ladies, with washing his posteriors, &c, in the wine trough.”
I’ve not come across any references to wine fountains for the 1937 coronation but several of our companies marked the event with commemorative postcards: Norwich Union’s board minutes record an agreement to spend £250 printing postcards which reflected the number of coronations since its constituent, Amicable Society, was founded.
A similar postcard was produced by another of our companies, Union Assurance, which was established in 1714.
Another of our companies, Employers’ Liability Assurance, also appears to have produced advertising linked to the 1937 coronation. The artwork below is in the Archive Collection although we have not yet worked out the link between the coronation and continental motoring. The use of the word automobile suggests it may have been aimed at the American market where the company had a large business.
Several of our companies also produced specific policies for the 1953 coronation of Queen Elizabeth II: Norwich Union suggested that employers should mark the occasion by setting up a staff pension scheme.
We also have examples of our various companies offering liability insurance for coronation events. General Accident’s proposal allowed event organisers to cover risks for food poisoning, firework displays, and seating stands, while Norwich Union let customers select additional cover for motor cycle events. The Norwich Union proposal included examples of accidents at similar events such as a girl injured in a chariot race and people injured by flying fragments of metal from a roundabout. Such accidents might explain why the Employers’ Liability’s form required the organisers to give details of all mechanical devices such as swings and roundabouts as well as the number of people and horses engaged in musical rides.
Several of our companies put on coronation events themselves for their staff and specially invited guests. Sun Life Insurance and United Kingdom Provident Institution both balloted staff for places to view the procession at their Charing Cross and Whitehall branches, while Friends’ Provident hosted a similar event at its Leadenhall Street offices.
Articles in staff magazines describe how difficult it was to get to the offices through the crowds on coronation morning, so it is just as well that the select few invited to General Accident’s London office on Pall Mall were sent a map with their invitations to help them find the branch on the day.
The editor (and resident cartoonist) of the company magazine also drafted a seating plan to show how they planned to fit everyone in.
At the company’s head office in Perth, the GAFLAC Social and Athletic Club put on a coronation eve ball at the Norie-Miller pavilion and staff could also buy tickets to watch the ceremony on television at the pavilion the following day.
Norwich Union also hired televisions and radios so staff and guests could tune in to the ceremony. The company’s coronation committee was given permission to spend up to £3000 on decorating branches although they also planned to reuse flags and window boxes which they had in store following the Festival of Britain celebrations of 1951 and to use plants grown in their own greenhouses at Catton House.
The company also hosted an event for over 200 people at its west end office on the corner of St James’ Street and Piccadilly. Guests were provided with facilities including a “ladies retiring room furnished and run by Elizabeth Arden” with running buffets and bars catering for lunch and breakfast. The breakfast would have been very welcome as those attending some of these events had to arrive by 6 am.
A final word on the celebrations in 1953 comes from the staff magazine of Sun Life. The editor, writing under the by-line Bow Bells, described the head office in Threadneedle street as tastefully decorated in royal purple and maroon and remarked on the large number of American policyholders who had come to witness the pageantry. Another contributor, writing under the name Spectator, described events at the company’s Charing Cross branch where staff gathered around a television at 10.15 to watch the ceremony and there was “a great thundercloud of emotional feeling discharging at length in spontaneous flashes of loyal and affectionate enthusiasm upon the Queen and her husband”.
