FIRST - Scientific Life Insurance - Nicholas Lane, London, UK - First of its Kind on Waymarking.com

The blue plaque tells us:

The Corporation of

Site of
the Parsonage of
St Nicholas Acons
where scientific
Life Assurance
began in 1762.

the City of London.

Wikipedia tells us about St Nicholas Acons:

St Nicholas Acons was an Anglican parish church, dating back to the 9th century and situated in Nicholas Lane within the City of London, which was destroyed during the Great Fire of London and not rebuilt. Its parish book, however, did survive and records that a foundling discovered in 1539 was named Nicholas Acons, the name itself stemming from a mediaeval benefactor. The parish was united with St Edmund the King and Martyr, Lombard Street in 1670. The name was retained as a precinct title in the south-western part of Langbourn Ward, one of the 25 self-governing wards, and featured in a famous 18th-century court case. In the 1860s a proposed unification of benefices between St Edmunds with St Nicholas and St Mary Woolnoth with St Mary Woolchurch Haw was vigorously defended by St N.A.’s discrete churchwardens. In 1964 the churchyard was excavated and important Saxon remains found but by the last decade of the 20th century found only a City Corporation Commemoration at the site of the old parsonage remained to indicate a church had ever been there.

Wikipedia also tells us about Equitable Life:

The Society’s first offices were in the parsonage of St Nicholas Acons in Nicholas Lane, moving to Blackfriars in 1774. Approval of policies, the main business of the Society, was undertaken by the Court of Directors whilst resolutions had to be approved at two meetings of the General Court which all members were entitled to attend. From 1786 this court also dealt with grievances and there was early tension between initial subscribers wanting a return on investment and those wanting to recruit new members. In 1816 a waiting period was introduced for new members and only the oldest 5000 policies were entitled to bonuses. In 1893 the Memorandum and Articles of Association was adopted, incorporating the Society as ‘The Equitable Life Assurance Society’ and transferring power to the directors. The 1816 membership and bonus restrictions were removed.

The Society moved to Mansion House St in 1863, Coleman St in 1924 and to new offices in Aylesbury in January 1983. The archives of the Society from 1762 -1975 are held by the Institute of Actuaries. The Society acquired the University Life Assurance Society and the Reversionary Interest Society in 1919 and the Equitable Reversionary Interest Society in 1920.

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