The Progress of Life Assurance Business in the United Kingdom during the last Fifty Years
At so striking an epoch in the history of our times as the Jubilee of our Most Gracious Queen, it seems natural that those who are engaged in any special branch of trade, or commerce, or science, should look back with interest at the records of the progress of that branch during the period then completed; and I therefore venture to hope that the particulars which I have collected regarding the progress of Life Assurance Business in the United Kingdom during the last half-century, and which I propose to lay before you this evening, may prove in some degree interesting to you.Before submitting to you these particulars, I think it may be useful if I refer for a few minutes to the condition of the United Kingdom in 1837, and to the changes which have occurred since then in matters which have had an important, though indirect, bearing on Life Assurance Business.