SPEAKER_02 0:09

Hello, and welcome back to Humanizing Insurance. As always, I'm your host, Daniel Grimwoodburn. And I'm delighted for the first time to be able to say welcome back. Welcome back, Howard Bench.

SPEAKER_00 0:20

How are you? Thank you very much. Thank you, Dan. Cheers, yes.

SPEAKER_02 0:24

Howard, uh, you are the director of the insurance museum. You were on the podcast back in October, where we spoke about uh the story of Edward Lloyd. And we'll we'll talk a little bit more about that later. But there's been exciting stuff happening at the insurance museum, hasn't there?

SPEAKER_00 0:42

Yeah, yeah, there has.

SPEAKER_02 0:44

Tell us about that.

SPEAKER_00 0:45

I've spent I spent last year, last year really, until about uh September time, putting together an adaptation to the National Lottery Heritage Fund. Uh and this really was gonna design to take the museum to the next stage to really start formalising its work. And uh we heard in December that we were we were successful, so we've we've received uh a grant from the National Lottery Heritage Fund for just under 250,000. Uh, and that's for the next three years to pay for. Well, it's a a project uh in three different areas. First of all, it's researching insurance heritage, so it's it's about what is out there. I mean, we we know there are archives out there, the famous archives at Lloyd's of London. Uh Aviva has a fantastic archive, of course, uh, with an archivist and a stone. And prudential archives exist. Um the Royal Sun Alliance, their archives went into the London archives, they looked after there. But there's a lot of other archives, object collections, let's say, out there that are lesser known. And we don't really know also what sort of state they're in as well. So the first part is around heritage, looking at what there is, but also looking at whether it's in danger. Does something need to be done, some remedial work, or is it more severe than that? Is it something that needs to be secured and locked in, so to speak? But within that too, there is a risk within insurance heritage around people. Because as life goes on, people uh become ill, they start to lose their memories, and people die as well. So we're setting up uh a program of all histories too, to start capturing some of those personal stories around their careers. So we're looking at that as well, to sort of really look at insurance heritage and save it and start the process of collecting and saving it. The other uh area is education. So establishing an education program, and I've I've been speaking to everyone about this, so your listeners perhaps might know of it already. But yeah, an education program that doesn't create a whole thing about insurance, but slots into the national curriculum, um, whereby, for example, in key stage one and two, the Great Fire of London is taught. And of course, the Great Fire of London is a fantastic subject. But if we just push that subject a bit further, in fact, we're going to talk about it, we can talk about early fire insurance to seven-year-olds. And that will start releasing this knowledge of what insurance is, what a great subject it is as well to to children, to children, start understanding the concept of it as well. And similarly in key stage three, too. And uh, well, part of that will be looking at um careers as well. We're linking up with the CII to look at careers too. Uh, and um yeah, the the the third bit is more you know the business side. We we need to become a resilient charity for the future. So we've got some funding for um business planning, fundraising, audience development, uh those very sort of dry but exciting uh sort of areas of the of the work of a museum. So, yes, we've entered our second stage, we've started the process, we're recruiting consultants to help us, and um maybe maybe Dan, we could catch up later in the year to um to to touch base and see how that's all going.

SPEAKER_02 4:19

I would absolutely love to. The insurance industry is not short of history to discuss, um, with some fantastic, fantastic characters within it as well. So, congratulations on that, Grant Howard. I I know uh you and and the guys at the insurance museum uh put in a tremendous amount of work together. So fantastic. And I look forward to where where you go next. But shall we talk about one of those characters? We're here to talk about Dr. Nicholas Barbin. A name that perhaps people won't know, certainly not as much as they would Edward Lloyd, uh, who we we spoke about a few months ago. But he is, spoiler alert, he is the father of fire insurance.

SPEAKER_00 5:05

Yeah, he's he's that's what he's known for in our in our sector. The father in fire of fire insurance. I was listening, I was recapping on my knowledge, and there was one academic who said, Yes, he's known as the father of fire insurance, but really he's one of the fathers of fire insurance. So um, yeah, but he's he's the most well known, and we'll explore why later. And I I think I think, yeah, he is, if there's any father, it's going to be him, I think, to be quite honest in my research.

SPEAKER_02 5:36

Amazing. There's also a ton of other things that we're going to touch on, but let's link our two subjects together. So Edward Lloyd and Nicholas Barbon are contemporaries in as much as they are, you know, in set late 17th century London? Is that fair fair to say? And absolutely. At the moment, we so insurance is sort of lumped together, isn't it? It doesn't really matter whether it's life insurance, property insurance, travel insurance, uh, excess and sappus, whatever it is, it's just insurance. Would Edward Lloyd and Nicholas Barnon have considered themselves to be contemporaries working in the same area?

SPEAKER_00 6:15

It's a good one. Um they were, I mean, if we again spoiler alert, um Barbon's office, his company office, fire insurance company office, was a stone's throw from Edward Lloyd's coffee house. Uh this this is an incredible thing. Uh there's so the the city was a very much a financial city. There are a lot of people walking around, going to the various coffee houses with their wigs on, their frock coats and big cuffs, and uh carrying out business in the Royal Exchange. The stock jobbers would be at Jonathan's coffee house, the marine insurers would be at Edward Lloyd's coffee house. There are other marine coffee houses, specialist coffee houses as well. Uh I think I mentioned Robert Hooke, he he was often found in at this is all at the same time, 16 uh the 1680s, 1690s. Um, he was found often found in Garraways. So there is a moment where around the mid-1690s, where yeah, they they were work, everyone was working in this very small area around Lombard Street, Cornhill, the Royal Exchange. But I think the fire insurance and the marine insurance were working in a parallel world. I don't think they would have seen themselves as insurers. They would have known about fire insurance, they would have known about marine insurance, but it would have uh uh my perception is that it would have been two very distinct trades.

SPEAKER_02 7:50

Okay, makes sense. Possibly something more like you know, if you're in the city of London today and you're in the Lloyd's building, you can see uh well, you can't anymore because they dismantle it, but the Aviva office uh St. Helens from the Lloyd's building, and Aviva does have uh syndicates, but I doubt those working on the trading floor in Lloyd's consider themselves to be particularly the same as those in the retail market that their peers, as they are across the street in Aviva, uh, are doing in their personal motor and home and travel insurance. Okay, so let's talk about uh Nicholas Barbon. When we spoke about Edward Lloyd, we didn't really know much about his upbringing because history is written about people who are already rich and well connected where when they're when they're born. Which camp does uh Barbon fit into? How how much do we know about his early life?

SPEAKER_00 8:48

Yeah, I I think we've um we've stepped up a level, let's say, in the recording of people's lives. Again, not someone who was super well known, but actually when you look at it, there was Mundy there in his background, probably quite middle class, and very religious and political background as well. His father, I you know, we have to look at the I always think you've got to go back to the family. His father was um what we would call, a very loose term, a Puritan, a preacher. Um, but he was very much involved in the the the Cromwell's parliaments, the Commonwealth. And in fact, there is a parliament that was named after um uh Nicholas Barbon's father. I mean, I'll start with his name. His name was Praise God Barbon, and that was given to him by his father. Now, Praise God was a very much Puritan family. He was born in the late 1500s, possibly 1600, don't know exactly. And he was um he was a leather seller, but he was also this preacher and uh what we call a fifth monarchist, and his name he was very much involved in the the religion at the time, the puritanical religions, and also the commonwealth. So it's a very interesting trade religious and governmental position that his father held. Um Nicholas himself, um, he was born about 1640, might have been late 1630s, 1640. And um he is recorded that he might have had quite a few siblings, but as the times go, you know, as they were rather, um, yeah, he uh he was really the only surviving child. He did have a sister as well, grew up into adulthood, but he seems to be the only surviving child of Praise God Barbons or Barbone again. The name is is it's it's all open to interpretation, Barbon, Barebone uh of his children. I think what's what's interesting is that Praise God Barebone, um he moved to London, the city of London, at the corner of Fetter Lane and Fleet Street. He moved into that area, Crane Court, Crane House, Red Lion Square. And this is this is this is really interesting. Um and he was even a preacher. So he would stand up in front of a hundred people, 150 people, and preach. So he obviously had this natural skill in oratory, you know, of speaking to people. Now, there's stories of that we won't go into of you know the the apprentices from the city of London and coming to his his preachers, his sermons and and and attacking, attacking everything, smashing windows, trying to disrupt. Um, but that was the times, that was very much the times. But yeah, this was the background that Barbon um was born into. We do have records of it. The further back we go, the more vague it becomes. For example, we think uh praise God Bourbon came from Northamptonshire. We think, probably did, but we know that he was he had moved to Fetterlane, we know he was preaching, we know he was in the English Commonwealth, fifth monarchist, all of that because of government records, and also, yeah, he was this English leather seller too. So we have those those records, but um, yeah, uh again, still at the time we're working on business and government records. So the records of a of a child, those records, they don't really exist. Uh so we don't know much about Nicholas's childhood, other than he was he was growing up in London, in that corner around Fetter Lane and Feet Fleet Street, and his father was uh a serious preacher. Uh he grew up in that environment, a preacher that's that attracted violence, a preacher that was put away in prison on several occasions in the Channel of London. So Nicholas grew up in that that environment. Um I think you might want to ask me about his name because I've been calling him Nicholas.

SPEAKER_02 13:11

I do want to ask you about his name because I've done some research and he has potentially, maybe disputed, maybe retrospectively added, potentially satirically retrospectively added, but he has a rather uh intense theological middle name.

SPEAKER_00 13:31

Yeah, well it's said that his name reportedly his father, let's not forget his father, his father, praise God barebone, pardon, gave Nicholas the name of, and I'm gonna say it slowly if Jesus Christ had not died for thee, Faust had been damned. That's quite a severe descriptive name, isn't it? Um normal for such back family backgrounds of the mid-17th century, but for us it does instill a sense of fear.

SPEAKER_02 14:10

And actually, in my question, I refer to it as his middle name because that's how it came up in my research, Nicholas, intense name, yes, Barbon. Is there a chance that actually that was his name? Much like his father's praise god, and he chose Nicholas, or Nicholas was the daily name, rather than you know, his mother shouting all of that out the window to try and get him in from play.

SPEAKER_00 14:37

Yes, yes, he would need a a working name, wouldn't he? Yes. But um, I don't see why not. He wouldn't be call called that, or he wouldn't be officially called that. I don't see why not. I mean, this this his father's uh life wasn't wasn't just going to church on Sunday, it threaded his religious belief, threaded, he was evangelical, it threaded through every part of his life. You know, and and even Nicholas, I mean he grew up, he was quite religious too, so he was a separatist and again what we call a millennialist. But words that we put on people then that they wouldn't probably use then. We put on them now, of then, sorry, but they probably wouldn't have used. So he was still, he still, Nicholas still had this religious belief, puritanical religious belief, um, but probably not inherited it in the same evangelical way that his father was willing to put his uh livelihood and his family and everything on the line, you know, by by going to the prison and going to the Tower of London, attracting violence. You know, he he didn't perhaps do that in the same way.

SPEAKER_02 15:55

And when we talk about violence, just going off piece slightly here, in 17th century London, is this uh is this religious extremism or is this just disagreements about how the Gospels are presented and and um and viewed?

SPEAKER_00 16:16

Yeah, it's it's an evangelical thrust, belief. It really is. I don't know if you could call it extremists. I mean, when I mentioned the riots, it were the the the city apprentices were well known for rioting, and I think they probably were paid by people to go and riot at something, you know, hire a mob. Young men, a bit bored, no girlfriends, bit of booze, bit of money, you know, they they they they you know they were the hire a mob sort of thing. I mean, they're all in apprenticeships in the city, they're all learning their trades. Um, and uh the the evangelical thrust really comes, you know, if you think about the past hundred years, um, I mean, the the that that sort of Puritanism, you could, again, that I'm using that word as a pro church, you know, you could trace it right back through history, the Anabaptists and so on, and keep going back and back. Um, looser, you know, nails his articles upon the doors of or of the church. Um, and um it's that sort of separation of corrupt church and um corrupt church and individual, individual communication with God as well. So, and there's also a lot of varying degrees of that too. I mean, if we if we just what I think is quite interesting is when you look back a hundred years to the 1530s, 40s, there was the famous Thomas Cromwell, uh, who was Protestant, who had a lot of connections with the Northern uh Holland, Netherlands, uh, Amsterdam. He was very much a merchant, a trader, he was earning a lot of money, and he had a belief in a commonwealth. You know, and just take that word, commonwealth. Uh it's about breaking down that structure of the belief of the church, whereby God is at the top, God's always going to be at the top, but after God is the Pope, and you report to the Pope, and after the Pope are the cardinals, and then within there are the kings and then the aristocracy, and that that feeds right down to the bottom of society, the peasants who don't deserve much because they're not really close to God. You know, they don't deserve money. They don't, you know, that that that that's the breaking that down was part of that commonwealth, um, which again, that Thomas Cromwell, um he was um he was evangelical. He very much believed in that, the dissolution of the monasteries, you know, all that. We're not going to go into that. I'm not gonna get into it, but it was all part of that. And that belief in commonwealth had perpetuated and grown with the separation from Rome, with um, then followed up by don't forget, Henry VIII died a Catholic or the Catholic, uh, then the Protestant states established finally under Elizabeth's Queen Elizabeth. Um, and still, you know, the New World, the Protestants were going out to the New World, North America, Northeast America, and still trading with that those northern Protestant states in Europe around Amsterdam and the Netherlands. And yeah, going into our uh the London 17th century and British 17th, English 17th century, um, the civil wars, the separation between um the monarch and parliament and where the powers lay. Um, yeah, yeah, it's so it's all part of that mix. I hope I've sort of made made sense there and answered your question.

SPEAKER_02 19:46

It's it's funny how it isn't it, because we were talking just before we hit record about how there were a billion rabbit holes that we could go through. Just gone down lunch. And and and I I opened one up for you. Um a fascinating time in uh British and world history because you know history echoes and continues to to impact everything that happens now. But let's drag ourselves back away from uh church separatism to Nicholas. So before insurance, he does what everyone in insurance does and has another career because nobody wants to get into insurance. Uh, so he trains as a physician in the Netherlands, and he gets recognition from the Royal College of Physicians. So he's he's doing a decent job at being a physician. Why do you know why do we think he went down that path? Is it just he's middle class, and that's quite a middle class thing to do to try and better yourself, become a physician?

SPEAKER_00 20:50

Yeah, I mean, it's also because again, religious belief, you are there to better yourself um as well. I mean, he there's he he went off to uh Utrecht, like Leiden, um at the time when his father was in trouble, so maybe they were putting to get out of the city away and get out of the country. Um, so there's that possibility. Uh he returned in 63. So that's 1663. He became a member of the Royal College of Physicians, uh, the year later, 64. And then after that, there was of course the Great Plague in 1665. And allegedly he stayed in London to treat the sick, which is a very brave, but again, religious thing to do. Um again, I've just read that he may have done is always you know that shit that jigsaw puzzle that we're missing over time, you know, the pieces get lost and go down the back of the settee and so on. So there's there's he may have uh stayed in London in the city during the plague. Helps the sick, and that would have been, yeah, he would have done that for free. Surgeons were working for free at that time. Um, but afterwards, uh, the year later, there was the Great Fire of London, you know, back-to-back disasters. So '65 was a great plague, a lot of people died. 1666, the Great Fire of London, where three-quarters of the city was destroyed, burnt down to the ground. Um, and uh it was in the rebuilding of the Great Fire that Nicholas started to get involved in property development. And it really comes from um the fact that his father, um, I remember I said that they lived in the sort of Crane Court area, the corner of Fetter Lane and Fleet Street. That was literally where the fire went up to. And you have a look on a map of contemporary of the time, those those maps of where they sent the fire. And one of Praise God's uh properties was spared, another was burnt down. It's literally, it was literally the last one to be burnt. So that was burnt down, and the process then to claim your building was to go to the fire court, prove the plot of land that you was yours. There was a lot of disagreements. There were a lot of disagreements, people trying to edge their property wider, longer, you know. Yeah, uh, and it was down to the fire court judges who then gave you your certificate, your piece of paper. That's yours, that land is yours. Please go ahead and build and build as soon as possible. And this building took a long time. Yeah, you know, it took a good 20 years to get London really rebuilt. But Barbon, we think, Nicholas Barbon, um, we think that he dealt with this process of going to the fire courts, getting a piece of paper, and getting the building rebuilt. Um, his father was in the latter years of his life. Maybe he didn't have the energy, maybe he wanted to, you know, devote himself to religion, whatever, but we think it makes sense that Barbon actually um dealt with this small property and getting it rebuilt. Now, within that, and here's my is my sort of logical thinking, within that, he's done it once, he's made connections, made friends, and can see how other people possibly are struggling. And there was a lot of um, if if if you claimed your land, you had your certificate, had your land, but you didn't really want to go down the route of rebuilding, and actually someone else had a house you can live in over there, off you went, rented that house, or bought another place, what a house that already existed, and you'd sell your plot of land to someone else. At the same time, the fire court had been identifying plots of land that no one had claimed. So that they would sell these plots of land after a certain time, keep the money in case the owner came forward and money would be given to them. But again, these plots of land were open for property developers. And Barbon started to, you know, perhaps in his experience of the first one, he bought some plots just around the corner. Again, it's just this little locality, very small-scale developments. He was buying up small plots, building on them, working within the, to some degree, the new rules of construction, using brick, that's the most important thing. Using brick as a material, not timber frame building, using brick, you know, looking all mod cons, really plush, really good looking, modern buildings for modern lifestyle, you know, all that sort of thing. Uh, and yeah, he he started developing or buying this sort of process of buying, developing, selling rather quickly. And in fact, what he did to when he really got going on this, he would buy a plot of land, he would mortgage that plot of land pretty much that you know, you know, at the same time, then use that money to build the building and then sell or then rent that building. So that he financially it worked, and it was working on a small scale. Uh and but it was quite it must have been quite close to the bone financially. Uh, and if you did default on your repayments, you know, people would be coming after you. That that wasn't unusual. Um, so he started developing this, this he became a developer. Now, whether it was because uh he didn't um he he he just wasn't making it as a doctor, don't know. Um yeah, but presumably there was more money in property development, and there were a lot of opportunities. So just consider a for the moment, you know, the city of London needed rebuilding. That went on. That his business developed, and he wasn't necessarily looking in the city either, he was also looking westwards. Um, just before the Great Fire, the the city of London and the city of Westminster, which was seat of government, were separated by countryside. Apart from a few big mansions going along the river, these you know wealthy people had their own personal river access, and that's how they commute up and down wherever they were going. And um, but it was all along the Strand, Fleet Street, the Strand, all along there. But otherwise, all those other areas, uh, Soho, Covent Garden, uh Holburn, they were all it was all countryside.

SPEAKER_02 27:47

Interesting. And I guess from the perspective of getting into property development, while there is huge opportunity, right? A huge amount of London has burned down and there's a lot of space around it uh to build on. Yeah, but also you know, let's let's be historically kind to to um Bowen. If he had just done a year of doctoring and the plague, I would want to get out. Having seen what what you've seen and experienced the death and destruction that has come with the plague, if an opportunity came to go and choose what color of magnolia you're going to paint the inside of the house you just built, that seems like quite a nice way to recover, doesn't it?

SPEAKER_00 28:33

Yeah. No, that's something I haven't considered, but yes, he he think about it, he graduated, I think he was awarded his degree, his doctorate in Utrecht. He came back, Royal College of Physicians, year later, absolutely thrown in at the deep end. And he would have said, and it was a nasty disease, it was horrible. And he reads the uh the descriptions by all the contemporaries um of uh of the disease. It's it was horrible, really horrible.

SPEAKER_02 29:05

So yeah, for for a young man, because he he's what 24, 25 at the time, yeah, mid-twenties. Yeah, um, so yeah, I'm I'm potentially gonna be historically unkind to Nicholas later. So I wanted to to put that in there just to give some balance to say, actually, you know what, if if he decided that being a physician wasn't for him anymore and he'd seen enough, then I think everyone would would give him that grace to to step away and go and do something different.

SPEAKER_00 29:32

Yeah, absolutely, yes.

SPEAKER_02 29:34

Okay, so five London has happened, um, devastation across London. We are now in a rapid rebuilding phase. London wants to be rebuilt. There are some rules, but for everyone uh that's visited London, uh, and if you haven't, we I looked at the stats just before we started recording Howard. We're now listened to in 50 countries, so there will be plenty of people uh across the globe that haven't visited London. It is Higgledy Piggledy, it is not New York um with its nice straight lines, it is a mishmash, and streets get narrow and there are alleyways where buildings nearly touch, uh, and it's a fantastic place to be. If you get the chance to come to London and the city of London, get out of the tube and walk around. It is an amazing place to be. All of this opportunity is there. And Baden um sets up a fire insurance scheme. Now, this is this links in lots of different directions, and there's lots of rabbit holes that we can go down because he has quite um radical economic thinking um about your very early capitalist uh and about how spending is what drives the economy, not about saving. Um, he's obviously uh a very devout Christian, very devout Puritan, and and has come from a family of that. And you might think that actually he sets up the fire insurance scheme for the greater good and to protect the people of London from ever facing the wrath of fire again. Or it could be that he's just got a bunch of properties now and doesn't want to lose his investment because he's mortgaged himself to the hilt and can't afford to lose them. What what does history tell us about that period uh of time?

SPEAKER_00 31:21

Yeah, and again, if we can perhaps just peer into the rabbit hole or holes. Um, I think one one thing that I find when I'm preparing for you know discussion like this is that a lot of books, as well as anything online, there's some great stuff online, you know, there's some really great stuff, but the you quite often have one-liners. And you know, the one-liner I see is that Nicholas Barberum was so shocked by the potential loss of that happened after the Great Fire of London that he he he created this fire insurance. Well, maybe, yeah, maybe why not? But um at the same time, yeah, he he had developed this small property business in the 16, late 60s, 70s, then building on that more and more. He's famous of uh Essex, uh the Essex uh court estate, just off the strand, which he he purchased um and then started rebuilding, and it had given the the Middle Temple a view across London, uh the in a lovely rural view, uh, which was now being destroyed, and he was beginning to upset people, but his mortgage to the hilt, his property developments grew and grew and grew. So he had a lot going on, the finance was fluid. Did he own anything? I just put my fingers up and quite uh quote inverted commas. Um, for those who are listening, did he own anything because it was mortgaged to the hilts? So, what are the risks? And yeah, he was a free mareteer, he believed in the free market, he believed in capitalism. Um, and again, I I'd say that's very much linked to that puritanical belief and the commonwealth, you know, of people being able to own wealth, and also that the wealth actually is in how much something is in demand as well. But that's another rabbit hole I'm just looking at. But yeah, um he's he did start. Yeah, there were other fires as well. It's worth pointing out there were other fires after the Great Fire of London, so it wasn't there, it wasn't it and you know, let's rebuild. There were other fires. So people, everyone knew full well of the risks of fire. Uh and when I give tours around the city, um, I often say, don't underestimate. Even by the early 1700s, even though it had been 30, 40 years since the Great Fire, people were still probably either traumatized or it was still very much in their head. They had their family stories about it. And Barbon's own personal experience, they lost a building, the family lost a building. So, yeah, he he started to insure fire insurance, use fire insurance to protect his own properties, his own portfolio, his own developments. Um, there were it wasn't anything new, fire insurance. He didn't just invent it. Um, the the um the Hamburg had a fire uh insurance uh institution, let's call it, but it was a it was a government one, it was a municipality one. Right. And you had to live in Hamburg and you had to own a property, and there wasn't much flexibility whether in or you were out. Um, whereas uh Barbon was working in more of a capitalist free marketers mind, how do I protect my own uh my own property uh against fire? So I think he was thinking financial risk. I I I I'll go down on the financial the side of financial risk.

SPEAKER_02 35:16

Okay. And let's talk about early fire insurance because we think of insurance now. If I had a fire in my house, we would all hopefully uh get out safely with the stuff that you know you answer on game shows about what's the one thing you grab in a fire or in icebreakers. And um the fire e would come, they'd put it out, and then the insurance would kick in. Someone would come around with a clipboard or an iPad and they'd say, What did you have in the house? What did you lose? Okay, here's the the payout. Wasn't so much that, was it, early fire insurance? It was more about really the the start of the fire service, wasn't it? Yeah, yes, it was.

SPEAKER_00 35:57

I Bourbon, I think the big actually, you know, the big jump for Bourbon, uh he set up his fire insurance company, company to insure houses, buildings, nicknamed the fire office. Uh, he set that up with partners and investors. So he calculated, well, if we insured X number of buildings, we need this amount of uh capital in case there was a Great Fire of London scenario. So it was set up as a business, and I think this is the sort of the first uh this is a really this is something that's unique. We said it's all about fire insurance, but and um actually talking to Peter Mansfield and listening to his podcast as well, he he highlights this that this was the first free market company that sold fire insurance. You sold it as a commodity, you didn't have to buy it. You all you had to do was own a building, you could be anyone, uh, and you would go to the company and you would purchase fire insurance. Now, the idea is that you you have a policy, a contract, and we have some early policies. There's one in the ABI Association of British Insurance, and also in the London Museum as well, of this early fire office uh fire insurance contracts, a policy, and they're they're they're printed, standard written, printed contracts with details put in. And the details would be adjusted around how much would it cost to rebuild this, to rebuild this, and then a rudimentary calculation of well, what would the premiums be then? What do we need from you to cover that? Um, so there's a bit of rudimentary uh goings on. I think something I read was interesting was that um, but though he'd been proposing it for quite a while, and it wasn't until 1680 this was uh established, um, people think, well, it it's it needs a lot of capital, needs a lot of you know, for the payouts, it needs administration, it needs an office, it needs running, it's not something that that you can just do. It has to be run by an organization like the City of London Corporation, the you know, the municipality. But he he obviously went off in the other direction, said no, this can be done. He set it up, and it was successful. Now he had this business model of money coming in through premiums, having the big chunk of investment behind him to pay out, um, with his partners, with I think there were 12 partners, investors, and uh, but it also was reducing the the risk of the payouts, of how much they were payouts, by employing you exactly what you said, a fire brigade, a fire service. So he employed men from around London, different parts of London, uh, who some of them were watermen, men with local knowledge, men who were big, burly, you know, strong, had been rowing on the on the River Thames, taking people, cargo, backwards and forwards, local knowledge, all that sort of thing. And he supplied them with up-to-date firefighting equipment, uh, a bit of a uniform, badges to identify who they were. And it was their job to put a fire out if a fire took hold. But Barbon also created the fire mark as well, which were plates about foot high, metal plates with the logo of the company. His in his case, the logo was a phoenix coming out of the ashes, you know, very very in every way, you know, metaphorical, uh in every way metaphorical. Uh highly painted, decorated with gold, with red, and that was put up on a building to identify that that building had been covered by the fire office fire insurance. And um, yeah, so he had created this sort of piece of marketing as well. So there was the policy, there was the fire brigade, and this sort of marketing, which um, you know, that that fire brigade thing, imagine today, you know, we're giving you peace of mind by ensuring that if there is a fire in your house, we've got a fire brigade that will come around and put it up, you know, all that sort of all that sort of of thing to sell the product. And it's only a few years before another fire insurance company had been set up. This time a mutual, it was the friendly society, it was a mutual, but they had contracts, they had policies, they had a fire brigade, they had fire marks, exactly the same as Barbon's.

SPEAKER_02 40:40

Amazing. So he he really did create the modern insurer in a more basic term. And you know, if I just explain my thoughts, so he has standard policy wording, he has some sort of rate book, or you know, let's let's call it an algorithm in its very earliest sense, uh, to price risk and to understand the risk. Uh, he has capital behind him to pay out. A question here, we when we spoke about Edward Lloyd, we spoke that Lloyd moved out of the Royal Exchange, or purposely didn't go into the Royal Exchange to avoid regulation. Was the fire office in the Royal Exchange and therefore under those regulations, or was it just nearby for passing trade and escaped that? That was very, very, very against his having regulation overseeing and setting things.

SPEAKER_00 41:37

Yeah, he he was based in the Royal Exchange, described as the back backside of the Royal Exchange. Um, the um the um but which that literally is a description because you there were no addresses. So you didn't yeah, you you would have to describe where your office was. So he did rent an office there. Now we don't know how that how that was in reality. It wasn't was he on the floor? Probably not on the floor. Renting an office, what was needed in the office, a bit of administration desk or something, or somewhere to keep the policies and maybe somewhere to lock up the money as well, the actual money. Um, so did was he regulated in the same way? I don't know. I don't know whether he was, whether he was just renting a room or whether he was actively on the floor. I can't see him be actively on the floor. Okay. So he may have, trust a guess, Hazard and Guess may have avoided that regulation, but he was uh advertised as being at the backside of the Royal Exchange. Interesting that would have been Thread Needle Street.

SPEAKER_02 42:47

And it it fascinates me about the the fire service, this private fire service looking for fire marks. And there's a scene, I'm a big pop culture guy, uh, in Gangs of New York, where Bill the Butcher has a his own fire brigade and the fire's burning, and he looks and goes, No, that's not one of ours, move on. Yeah, it would have it would have been like that, right? Houses would have been burning and the private fire service would have walked past if you didn't have the fire marks. That wasn't their job.

SPEAKER_00 43:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 43:18

Well, um, or is that is that uh is that a gang in New York? Yeah, where were they there to put out every fire rather than just the ones that were happening that threatened the properties that they were insured under?

SPEAKER_00 43:32

Yeah, by say by the early 1700s, there was other fire insurance companies. And this is the other thing about the free market as well, with that Hamburg model, with the City of London model, the municipality, you have to do that. Whereas by the early 1700s, there were a number of fire insurance companies you, as a consumer, could choose from. So which one suits you best? And they were in fierce competition with each other. To gain that custom, fierce competition with each other. Okay. And the other thing we haven't mentioned about him is very much a pamphleteer. And early on, he was really promoting his business through pamphleteering. He was a pamphleteer. Right. But yeah, when it came to fires, say there was, say in the 1690s, you got the the fire office barbens, there was the Friendly Society, and there was the hand in hand, which was established, I think, say, I think it was uh 94 or 96. Um there was a fire in a building, and certainly around the corner became the fire brigade of the hand in hand. They, and it was a maybe there was a plaque on the wall, a fire mark of the fire office, they would start putting the fire out. And the agreement was that they would um put the fire out by themselves, or if the the um the fire officers brigade came hurting around the corner, they would join in and help and work together to put the fire out. Right. And even people on the street might even start helping to put the fire out as well. Um, but what the situation was, what the agreement was when it came to that, fierce competition in selling, but when it came to the that sort of um dealing with this with the problems, they worked together. And so that hand-and-held fire brigade would then charge the fire office um a fee.

unknown 45:23

Right.

SPEAKER_00 45:25

Yeah, so that's that's how it's done. It became more sophisticated going into the 1700s when there was war fire and war fire insurance companies, um, and and so on. Um that that that was sophisticated in that way, but yeah, you have this urban myth of no, we're not going. In fact, there's a wonderful um horrible histories. Look it up, it's on YouTube, a horrible histories clip um of all the fire brigades turning up saying, Thank you very much for choosing rules, sunfire officers as you're chosen. Um, it's brilliant, but it's incorrect. They they would help each other and they would put fires out because and I'm gonna quote Anna Stone, the archivist of Viva. I always do here. In her words, she said, It was in no one's interest to let a fire burn and just remember the great fire of London, and remember there were other fires as well afterwards. No one, I no one people haven't forgotten, haven't forgotten that.

SPEAKER_02 46:23

Well, quite, I mean, I referenced it earlier. London is still Higgledy Piggwedy, and it is still very close. A fire spreads quickly, you can't contain it to a city block like you can in New York or um or potentially somewhere like that. Um yeah, no, it makes makes a ton, a ton of sense. There's a there's a little romanticizing hitter. I'm going, I'm going off down another rabbit hole. Um so one an episode that I'd really like to do, which is from the other side of the Atlantic, is Benjamin Franklin, who set up the Philadelphia uh contribution ship for the insurance of houses from Lost by Fire. They needed a snappier title, but that's what they they came up with uh in 1752. Now I know Franklin was in London uh for for a period, so he must have seen this happening, and then you know went back to uh to Philadelphia uh and with his friends and his investors set something very similar up. Um so we'll we'll have to find uh uh a US uh insurance museum or or archivist, uh maybe of a Philadelphia insurance company that that can talk to me about that. I think that'd be fascinating to try and link these stories together and see whether Franklin did at any point you know see one of the fire services running by or I think so, and he was also drinking in the coffee shops.

SPEAKER_00 47:51

Coffee houses. So he was there in the coffee houses with all the financiers, the the philosophers, the intelligentsia, the you know, uh and he would have known how they worked. And his yeah, his company is pretty much a replica of the London fire insurance companies, you know, with the fire marks. In fact, I believe his company, the Philadelphia, had um four hands joining together to left right, yes, top-bottom joined together, uh, which replicated the hand-in-hand fire insurance company, which was two hands joining together with a crown over the top. Um yeah, in fact, the hand in hand was nicknamed after um after the uh that that their that that logo, as uh they were actually known as, again, similar to to the Philadelphia one. Um, they were known as the contributors for insuring houses, chambers, or rooms from lost by fire by amicable contribution. Again, it was a it was a mutual. That was a mutual company.

SPEAKER_02 49:01

Does exactly what it says on the tin there, doesn't it? There's no ambiguity of branding, though.

SPEAKER_00 49:08

Nicknamed the hand in hand because of their logo. Yeah. Amazing. So, yeah, I mean, Barbon's model from the fire office, then by um uh the Friendly Society hand in hand, and also the hand in hand became one of them. That was 1996, it was established. I mentioned it then became one of the main fire insurance companies through the 18th century, the 1700s. The Sun Office fire office also became one of the main companies through the 17th century. That was set up in 1710. Um, but yeah, that that that company in the early 1900s, the hand in hand, was then um taken over by commercial union. Right, which then became which then yeah, yeah, Aviva.

SPEAKER_02 49:58

Amazing. It's it's uh I can see why why you like the Aviva archives so much.

SPEAKER_00 50:06

Goes right back to the beginning, yeah. They do, they do.

SPEAKER_02 50:09

Amazing, amazing. Okay, so that's Barman set this up. Um he writes a book, doesn't he? It does the Discourse of Trade, which is um you know, sets out all of his thoughts about why consumption is better than savings and you know, um critique of hoarding money uh and and all of this stuff that we've spoken about. And then he goes into parliament. Yeah. Now that could be because he is uh you know wants to wants to further the greater good and wants to uh create betterment and the commonwealth, or it could just be because being a member of parliament uh allows you to not be chased by your the people that you owe money to. Yeah. Could be, couldn't it?

SPEAKER_00 50:56

Parliamentary privilege. Do we think it's the latter rather than the former? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's parliament. I mean, today parliamentary privilege, you might get cheap drinks at the bar or cheap food while you're actually in Westminster or something, but then there was a whole lot more, and parliamentary parliamentary privilege protected you. This is the 1690s. He was voted, he was voted twice to become MP for Pranborough in in Sussex, and uh he had uh purchased uh some b some plots of land burgages, but the place itself, um, short by Stainford, um, it was a rotten borough, which means that there were not many people who lived there, right? And you more or less could buy a place, have voting rights, and vote yourself in as member of parliament. Right. So it was a rotten borough, he bought land there, he obviously influenced everyone else who lived there, who had voting rights, and he became member of parliament. And yeah, the the privileges meant that he could not be prosecuted um while he was a member of parliament, and that includes people coming after him for their their money. So he could any, you know, debtors, because there was the debtors' prison. If you didn't pay up, you go to debtor's prison. You know, anyone coming after you for your money, you could just bat them back. You had this privilege that he protected you from it. And as we we mentioned earlier, he his business was very fine, you know, buying land, mortgaging it, and sometimes it didn't work out, and he was in debt, he very much was in debt in the 1690s, spinning lots of plates, running this fire insurance company, which he actually stood back from in the mid-1690s. Right. Interestingly enough, he also tried to paint uh a fire engine which sucked water out of a river, the River Thames, and then would pump it onto. But that that's you know, that's something else. But yeah, he was in Parliament. Uh he has been accused of not being active, an active member of Parliament. He really did it to protect himself, and yes, I'm sure he did. It gave him a level of protection. But he was, he did work in parliament. And if you pop onto the parliamentary archives, just the website, you know, look him up. There's everything that he was involved in. And a lot of his work, again, was around based on his economic beliefs, his economic theories, and his his pamphlets and his book, um, about ensuring that government wasn't storing up all this silver, you know, get release it, spend it. Uh, he wasn't too keen on the England having a standing army. William III at the time, I mean he William III is interesting as well, you're Calvinist, uh Dutch, of course. And um he was on the throne because of Mary, who was James II's uh daughter, and it was William and Mary. Um but Mary died in '94, I think, smallpox. And so going into that latter part of the 90s, William III on the throne, Dutchman, fighting wars of France in the Low Countries, and requiring England to have a standing army, the funds to pay for it. The Bank of England was established to pay for a Royal Navy, um, which worked very well, very well. Um turned out to be quite lucrative for Britain, didn't it, having the Royal Navy? Yes, yes, yes. Absolutely. It really fed really fed into the country's sort of uh wealth and expansion in the next century. Uh, but yeah, um, yeah, so he was still, you know, he was still very much part of the capitalist free market uh uh sections in in parliament. You might call them Tories, although it's a bit early, I'm thinking to call them Tories at that point, I'm not quite sure.

SPEAKER_02 54:58

Okay. So Baden dies in 98, 1698, there or thereabouts. So in his late 50s, maybe 60.

SPEAKER_00 55:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 55:13

It ends in debt and controversy. How is he thought of today? Because it seems like, even if maybe for slightly the wrong reasons, he did a lot of good, and you know, that that initial work and the echoes that have become from that are still around today and and in a very similar format to to what he set up. Well, apart from my reference at the start, not many people knowing his name. Yeah, how I mean is he thought of in modern modern era?

SPEAKER_00 55:53

Outside of the insurance world. I don't think he is. Um uh some people might know of him, but um, but I think most people probably don't. Who do we know from that period? Christopher Wren, you know, big monumental structures he built. Sir Isaac Newton. Interestingly, again, at this time, so Isaac Newton became famous a bit later, but at this time it was Robert Hooke who was the main scientist on the town. He's also a firecourt judge and a financier and everything else. He was the man about town. Isaac Newton wasn't, but we remember Isaac Newton. So there's a lot of reasons why we don't remember people and why we remember people, but I don't think Barbon is remembered now. Um, he has a lot of bad press. So, for example, I've reading uh it was a book that was published a couple years ago um by the London Topographical Society. So that's Frank Kelzall and Timothy Walker, and Nicholas Barbon Developing London, 1667 to 1698. And they they said that you know there's people have incorrectly stated that Barbon died in debt, didn't pay off his debts. But no, his will, his actual will, it still exists, says how all his debts should be paid from his money and his estates. So he he yeah, so he did pay off his debts, he didn't die in debt. Um his wife had died the year before he did. They were both buried at Heston Church. He he had so much you haven't talked about, he purchased Osterley House right on the outskirts of London, big mansion. He wanted to be this this country esquire, not too far from London, still be the financier, um, buried there. I don't think people do know of him that much. When they do, he's got a negative, negative persona. If you if you go to the insurance hall of fame uh in the US, and there's all these paintings of pictures of insurers, you know, with uh sunlight, there's a painting of him that was uh painted in the 1960s, and it's not someone you'd want to know. Honestly, this stern figure with the this pointy chin and pointy nose, and he's staring at you. It's really not someone you want to spit, drink a cup of coffee with.

SPEAKER_02 58:21

Have we turned him into Ebenezer Scrooge?

SPEAKER_00 58:24

Possibly, yes, possibly. Yeah, Scrooge.

SPEAKER_02 58:28

So let's I mean let's let's recap and give him his dues. So he grew up in London with a father who was being persecuted for his religion view, religious views. He trained as a physician and then immediately got thrown into the the largest mass cat mass casualty event that you could really imagine in the Great Plague. He then survives 50% of his family's assets being destroyed in the fire of London. Uh, helps to rebuild the city, and we've we've all been there in Monopoly where you mortgage your properties to try and build a house. We we all know how that can spiral. Um, sets up fire insurance, the the fire office, um, brings fire insurance to the masses, helps to save you know more great fires potentially from happening by bringing insurance to the masses with standard wordings, creates uh you know the basis for for what is known as fire insurance, which becomes property insurance, which then spreads throughout the world, uh, becomes a member of parliament, albeit you know a not very active one, although dependent on what country you're in, what side of the fence you're on. You could argue that is still the case now. Uh and then settles settles all his debts when he dies from the hope of bettering himself and you know the the peasantry, the lower classes, to change the fact that actually it's not just the aristocracy that are closest to God. Seems a little bit like it could be a modern era.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:02

Yeah, yeah. I think so. And I and I'm you know, I look at it and I think, you know, is this period religion going into the financial world, going into the free market, going into capitalism, going into the world that we know today, translating that democratization of society uh that we we we have today? I mean, of course, there's already you know some argued we don't, but we we do you know we do pretty well under the free market and capitalism. Um we also haven't mentioned the land bank that he created. Um please tell us about that. What is that? Yeah, so he well, in the it was in the 80s, like I think. Yeah, he um basically he he before the Bank of England he created the land bank, which is basically it's very straightforward. It was to uh allow people to raise loans on their land, their property. So similar to what he's doing. Okay, so yeah, and it was working quite well, it was working quite well. Um, so he's allowing through a capitalist way, and again, you can say on the one hand, yeah, he's seen a way to make more money, or he's he's also thinking this will enable people to raise some capital for whatever they want to do to read a vision of a new London, he had a vision of this city that would be built of brick with you with in the style of his architecture. He had a vision of Holborn, Red Lion Square, uh, some of which he didn't see out, but a couple of decades later it was rebuilding in this sort of vein of the way he had seen it. So he had a vision for the modern world through bricks and mortar, through architecture, through buildings, but also through personal wealth, commonwealth, um, and allowing that to happen through loans to the land bank. I mean, it didn't last the land bank, emerged in another one, and they were stretched too far, and then it collapsed in the 90s, you know, that that sort of thing. And yeah, and so I I've got a bit of a positive image about him, even as a uh as a politician. Um, yeah, you could say he didn't do much when he was there, but well, what were the others doing? You know, where's the where's the where's the benchmark? Do we just come in the middle, not doing anything, or uh right at the bottom, you know, where does he come?

SPEAKER_02 1:02:23

And we also can't we also can't really hold parliament to the same standard as we do now because there was still it was still very much, you know, as you said, you know, William was still fighting wars and requiring taxes. And it was Parliament, Parliament's job wasn't to necessarily run the country per se, it was to hold the king to account. And you know, it was a very different, yeah, different time and different form of government, arguably more you know, Roman Senate than it is modern, uh modern parliament in that sense. Yeah, and it seems it seems to me that Bond has a foot on either side. So you know, he seems very capitalist, he seems a little bit socialist, he's he's you know in the end of the medieval era into the early modern era, and seems, and that there will be millions of characters and millions of stories that help us to bridge that gap, but certainly seems like one of them that helped us take that step across the brink from medieval to early modern, uh, and into what what we are today, for sure. I I came into this wanting uh wanting scandal and to call him a rogue, and actually I I'm leaving this with rather a soft spot for him.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:40

Yeah, yeah, me too. Me too. I thought he was a hard, difficult person to get to grasp and get hold of. But I think as always, history is always written by other people, and when you start looking at it and start thinking about it, maybe join up some dots, and it's your own judgments and perceptions you're bringing to the table. Um, yeah, I didn't want to use the word socialist because it creates reactions in our minds of what it is. You know, he didn't believe in the state controlling anything, he believed it was up to us, but he believed in a common wealth coming out of that feudal society and that structure of of gods to the peasant, and the then the pure botanical sort of redevelopment of of remoulding of that of that structure. Um, and uh yeah, he he you know, on the one hand you can argue he was a greedy businessman, or on the other hand, he was someone who had a vision and wanted everyone and a city to have a really good, a really good future.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:46

Howard, this has been a wonderful episode. Is there anything else we need to know about uh Dr. Nicholas Bartham before we finish up? That from from your research is really Israel burning thing that you went. This is so amazing, I must talk about it, and I haven't set you up for it.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:02

Yeah, we haven't really touched on his property developments, but again, that's a rabbit hole. You know, he he he upset a lot of people. He did. He he kept relatively within the um uh guidelines of rebuilding houses after the Great Fire, but he didn't, you know, he didn't, as a lot of other people didn't. He um had opposition to a lot of his buildings, so at Essex Court off the Strand, there was opposition against the uh from from the lawyers, which ended up in a uh fisticuffs apparently between the lawyers, the young lawyers, and uh the builders of the site. Um I know he couldn't put my money on. Um, but he there were objections after objection, whether that be local or national, committees saying you stop, you can't do this, this isn't the process. But he just went on and did it. He just plowed through it. So he obviously had very little respect for procedure, uh, whether that be government or municipal procedure, or whether it's listening to other people, what they want. No, he was plowing ahead, plowing ahead, and he instructed. And of course, those builders, they're being paid. So the more they work, the more they get paid. So um going back to that sort of gangs of New York kind of thing, um, there was a bit of that there. So he he he did disregard um what's the word, yeah, procedures uh to to to get. But again, he was he was working a very tight ship, he didn't have the money to hang around. He had to get he would hate archaeologists these days, you know, holding up any development, absolutely detest them. But yeah, he had to get that that development through because he was up to his ears in debt, and he had to get it sold or rented to start getting the income to pay for the next one. But he did have some rather large developments. Um and they can still be seen today. Yeah, I mean, as he had a particular kind of architecture as well, it was criticized for being flimsy, but at the same time, it survived, it has survived. You can see remnants of it around the courts, the middle courts of Fleece Street. Um, and uh yeah, do a bit of research, uh, find out which buildings are still there. Um, also Red Lion Courts, that Fetter Lane Corner, Red Lion Court as well. There was a well court or wells court uh over on the east side, most of it was west, but he had something on the east side as well. And I was I think and I was looking at that recently, and they it's even though the mill buildings have been replaced, it's pretty much the same. You've got this square, this court, well court. Yeah. Um, so yeah, um, and I it it it he was prolific. He was absolutely prolific. Um, and he did shape a way that the future London would look. So, but I think that's that's probably another episode to talk about as buildings, and maybe not an insurance one because that's property development and architecture.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:07

Yes, when I when I start a podcast called Humanizing Architecture, I will phone you and uh and we'll we'll get you on that one as well. Yeah. Um Howard, before we end, what exciting things are coming from the insurance museum in the nearest money.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:23

Yeah, well I mentioned I mentioned that um uh uh uh lottery funding and we're we'll be setting it up, the education programs, uh programs for families and young people, that sort of thing that you you'd see a museum do. We will be using other people's um uh venues to do this because we are still working towards our physical venue, um, which we're aiming, we're aiming for three to four years. Okay. Uh time to actually to actually everyone. Um, the more people we get on board, the sooner that will happen. So out to all of your listeners, um, please come and join us. Um, become a member, convince your organization to become a corporate sponsor, please do, because uh without the support of the insurance community, um we we wouldn't be able to move forward. Um, and we have moved forward thanks to the support that's already been given by various people. But one thing to look out for in the future is this autumn, and I'm not gonna talk too much about it at the moment, but uh we have an exhibition coming up. So you heard it here first, and um keep your ears close to the ground when we can announce it. And um, yeah, and I was thinking maybe around that time, Dad, we could perhaps come back together to talk about a continuation of of this and and Lloyd, um, Edward Lloyd, um, perhaps around um around the exhibition. But yeah, more on that soon. We'll let everyone know on LinkedIn in the usual places.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:57

Yeah, I I would I would absolutely love to. And I um that actually that's our first ever exclusive. Uh, so I'm feeling rather journalistic uh and smoke with myself uh at the minute. So um, yeah, if you want to know more, then it's the insurance museum on LinkedIn. It is um website is insurance.museum, uh, isn't it? If you want to go in uh insurance museum UK. Yeah. Okay. Um and you also do some fabulous walking tours around London, don't you? Yes. Tell about the history. I I see a lot of them on LinkedIn. I haven't I haven't got to go on one yet. I am a member of the insurance museum. I did join that, um, which is fantastic. Uh, if you get the chance, if you you know, if you're in London and you want to do a team building thing, if you are just visiting London and you want uh you know walk around and see the higgledy-piggledy nature and have Howard point out all of the interesting things and share his knowledge with you, then uh then do get in touch with him. Um, Howard, all that is left me to say is thank you so much for coming back on the podcast. It is uh my greatest pleasure to be able to bring insurance and history uh together. And uh yeah, thanks. We'll see you again when we think of another uh you know interesting character to dive down the rabbit holes of of their life in.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:17

Absolutely, yeah. I look forward to it. Thank you very much, Dan. Thank you. And do come down to London, come on one of our come on one of our tours. I'll let you know when they're happening. Amazing, sounds great.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:27

And that was Dr. Nicholas Barbon, a man who lived through plague, fire, political upheaval, and somehow found a way to turn all of that into something that still shapes our life today. Whether you see him as a visionary, an opportunist, or something in between, there's no denying his impact. And actually, I came into this recording thinking that I was going to call him a rogue masquerading as a gentleman. And actually, I think my conversation with Howard has changed my mind. I think now he's probably just misunderstood. I think when you look back at people like Barton, you realise that insurance has never just been about policies and premium. It's always been about the people. It's about their ideas, their motivations, their flaws, and the world they were trying to build. Howard, thank you so much for coming back on. As always, I feel like we've only scratched the surface, and I'm so very much looking forward to the next one. And to everyone listening, if you've enjoyed this episode, do share it with someone who might find it interesting. Thanks to Mark Huxley for recommending Nicholas Barlin as the topic. If you haven't already, go and check out Humanizing Insurance on LinkedIn and the work that Howard and the team are doing at the insurance museum. It really is worth your time and it has some fabulously exciting plans for the future. Until next time, I've been Daniel Grimward Bird. This has been Humanizing Insurance.