After the Great Fire in 1666 that devastated one third of London, reducing to ruins over 13,000 houses and 89 churches (including St. Paul’s) it was realised that there was a need for the provision of compensation. At the time the only form this took was a collection at the local church. There are various views on when a fire insurance company started, from as early as 1667, but it is generally accepted that Dr. Nicholas Barbon, M.D., son of the eccentric member of Cromwell’s Parliament, Praise-God Barebones, was the first to promote a serious form of insurance protection in the name of The Fire Office, later to be known as The Phenix, which commenced underwriting fire insurance in 1680 and ceased about 1712. There are no surviving examples of their fire mark. However, we do know that policies exist, and their emblem is that of a Phoenix rising from the flames.

Mindful that few streets were named and the buildings were not numbered, some form of identification was necessary, and the birth of the fire mark came about. The first examples were made of lead, and some hundred years later followed by copper, tinned iron, zinc, brass and ceramic. They bore the logo of the insurance company, in many cases in the form of the county’s coat of arms. Greek mythology played an important part in many designs, typically that of The Fire Office’s emblem.

The emblems that were attached to buildings by the insurance company’s employee were called Fire Marks; to mark the building indicating that they insured it and/or the contents, for fire risks. This practice carried on for two hundred and fifty years.

There were approximately two hundred insurance companies that issued over eight hundred fire marks, some only one and others as many as forty-odd different variants.