The Centre is delighted to announce the publication of A History of Methodist Insurance in Britain by Clive Norris. The production of this book coincides with the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the foundation of the Methodist Insurance Company, and it tells the story of how Methodists acted, from the earliest days, to protect their chapels and other buildings from fire and other risks.
After several failed attempts in the first half of the nineteenth century, the various strands of British Methodism, including the Primitive Methodists (1866) and the Wesleyans (1872), established property insurance concerns, financed by leading lay members and managed jointly by businesspeople and clergy. These protected an expanding nationwide network of chapels and schools, and provided crucial underpinning for the movement’s mission of spreading the gospel and delivering educational, welfare and social services.
The narrative encompasses an era of wrenching social change, two World Wars, and a technological revolution, but the purpose, ethos and daily operation of today’s Methodist Insurance Company would look familiar to the pioneers of one and fifty years ago.
This book from OCMCH Publications is available in both hardback and paperback. Order your copy now by following this link.
Westminster Oxford Research Network 
One reply on “Publication – A History of Methodist Insurance in Britain by Clive Norris”
Where did the Wesleyan and General Insurance company fit in with this? I lived in a houe in the grounds of Handsworth College for the first 8 years of my life and we children used to play in the adjacent “Wesleyan and General fields” which comprised land which, we were told, used to belong to the insurance company. There was a decaying old house and a newt pond, both of which we explored.
LikeLike