NOTES ON FIRE INSURANCE MARKS. 
53 
prevent fraud in getting any Policy after a house is burnt, no house 
is to be esteemed a secure house until the Mark hath been actually 
fixed thereon." The Marks were also paid for by the Insurers. 
There was an average charge of 2/6 for the Mark, also a charge 
for the Policy, about 4/-% for duty, and the premium was never less 
than 2/6%—thus an insurance of £100 on a dwelling-house would 
cost, say 11/6. 
The Hand-in-Hand also published this Regulation in their early 
days, but do not assign any reason for it. In 1731 this Office 
ordered that “ the Marks are to be put up by the messenger within 
Seven Days after the Policies are taken out." The Regulations of 
the Sun Fire Office also stated that every person insuring shall have 
a Mark representing the Sun nailed up against their houses, which 
Mark is to be numbered with the number of the Subscriber’s Policy, 
and there to remain so long as the Subscribers continued to pay 
their quarterages. 
Now, all this clearly shows that the fixing of the Fire Mark in 
those days to the building insured was as much a part of the 
Contract, as, let us say, the payment of the Premium. 
Secondly, in various Mob Riots, as in the Gordon Riots in 
London, and the Bristol Riots, the houses of obnoxious persons 
bearing these Marks were spared from burning, as the mob knew 
the loss would fall on the Insurance Company. 
With this object of protection from mob law, the Plates were 
even hung on ricks and farmsteads in the Eastern Counties and in 
the West of England in the wild times of the repeal of the Corn 
Laws, and of the introduction of threshing machines, but about 
1727 the Companies began to repudiate liability arising from the 
action of a mob. 
A third use was, or more properly is, advertisement. 
At an early time, the Plates were hung like shop signs outside 
the Offices of the Fire Insurance Companies, and they are still 
extensively used on the Continent, in our Colonies, the United 
States, and wherever English Assurance Companies are now- 
doing business. It is told of some Insurance Companies that the 
present profusion of gai 13^ coloured plates on houses in some 
Continental cities need not necessarily signify insurance, but 
merely that a small sum has been paid by the Company for the 
privilege of using the house as an advertisement. 
Lastly, there is the superstitious feeling with regard to them. 
More than once the writer has been baulked in getting one from a 
