The Police Force

Under Spanish law, before the conquest of Trinidad by the British forces in 1797, the police force in Trinidad  came under the control of the Agualcil Mayor, who was a member of the Illustrious Cabildo which formed the effective government of the colony.

The police in those days comprised six men. These were kept in at St. Joseph, the old capital of Trinidad. As the little village of Cumucurapo grew into the town known as Port of Spain, their activities became increasingly concentrated there. At the time of the British conquest, Trinidad was going through a very turbulent period. The Spanish colonial establishment was relatively small, comprising a dozen or so officials, headed by Governor Chacon and supported by a handful of local Spaniards, a few Frenchmen and a couple of Irishmen. Their chores derived mostly from criminal elements and republicans both black and white, runaway slaves, freebooters and members of various militaries who absent without leave. All these found a ready heaven in Trinidad, arriving by the hundreds from the nearby islands and from down the main. They challenged Chacon's authority almost daily and alarmed the French creole establishment, who were conservative royalists and who had invested what was left of their fortunes in the purchase of slaves and the establishment of plantations. Both property and life were under threat on a regular basis. Chacon could not handle it for much longer.

All this changed with the arrival of the British forces. Sir Ralph Abercromby left his aide-de-camp Colonel Thomas Picton in command of the island. Historian Michael Anthony recounts his words to Picton:

"I have placed you in a trying and delicate position, nor ... can I leave you a strong garrison: but I shall give you ample powers. Execute Spanish law as well as you can. Do justice according to your conscience. That is all that can be expected of you."

With some 15,000 people, mostly French-speaking, both European and African, who had republican sentiments and disliked the English for their support of the French royalists, Picton's job must have been a tough one. History shows that he dealt forcefully with insurgents, malcontents, revolutionaries, lunatics, criminals and opportunists by deporations, public hangings, decapitations and the exposing of body parts of the executed at the town gate and other public places, as was the custom in England and the continent of Europe at the time.

Colonel Picton created a military police force. One could say that the military tradition of the police service in Trinidad, which has come down to the present, has its origins from Picton's time. Picton "instituted the compulsory enlistment of Free Blacks and coloured men into the police and as a result the police force was soon regarded (and so it was considered for many years) not as an essential service but as a form of punishment." writes Fr. Anthony de Verteuil in his "History of the Irish in Trinidad".

Certainly, it became an important employer for the Barbadians, Grenadians, Vincentians and other "small islanders', who came in great numbers to this island. Even in the 1930s, when former police commissioner Eustace Bernard joined the service, he could write in his memoirs:

"The Trinidadian, not the Tobagonian, thought that it was 'infra-dig' to become a policeman, and that the policeman's status, if he had one, was low indeed."

From very early on, recruits did in fact come from overseas, not just the British colonies in the West Indies, but significantly from Ireland. Fr. de Verteuil recounts that in 1823, the police force consisted of James Mean, who was the Chief of Police, Assistant Chief H.G. Peake, Corporal Alexander Sandy, and Constables John McCarthy, B. Vasquez, Peter Stevens, Michael Christie, James Stephens and Peter MacDonald. 2 years later, there were 100 constables in the service, mostly from Barbados.

The commissioned officers were of course from Europe, as all positions of authority during this period of colonial rule were held by British officials. There was an inspector, later called inspector commandant, and two sub-inspectors. Not all the Barbadians who entered the force in those years had African ancestors.  There was in Barbados a relatively large community of impoverished white people, who had been transported to the island during the previous century, some to be servants of the upper classes, others to serve indentureships on similar contracts as the Indians who came to Trinidad. These were called "Red Legs" for obvious reasons and because of the class system endemic in the colonial period were treated no differently from the coloureds by the official establishment, who were or pretended to be of the upper classes.

A quarter of century later, in 1877, five members of the Royal Irish Constabulary were brought into the local police force. In 1876, the Police Headquarters was built on St. Vincent Street. On the site of this building once stood the barracks of the old West India Regiment which was brought back from Martinique in 1802. It was built in the Italian gothic style of limestone quarried at Picadilly Street in Port of Spain and cost some £90,000 altogether. It was equipped with an iron ball on a flag post, which fell precisely at midday Greenwich mean time.

It contained a residence for the head of the force as well as quarters for the volunteer fire brigade and the volunteer corps. At one time, the stipendiary magistrate of Port of Spain held his daily court there. In 1882, it burnt down as a result of a fire started in the lamp room. 1862 [?] saw the establishment of a "plain clothes detective branch".

In 1884, Commandant Baker described the force as being composed of 436 men of all ranks including 30 additional in that year. His staff consisted of two inspectors, Englishmen, one posted in Port of Spain, the other in San Fernando. A sergeant major from the Irish constabulary for each division, five sergeant superintendents, one a black man, the others former soldiers from the Irish constabulary, 21 sergeants, both white and coloured, 26 corporals of mixed ancestry, three grades of constables, full strength 350, some of who were European, the others mostly from Barbados "and two or three natives of Trinidad in the whole force, who are usually wathless from stupidity. Besides this stupidity, there is a great dislike to enter the force amongst the natives and the dislike has existed for years." [Source?]

J. N. Brierly came to Trinidad in 1874 to join the police force. Making a name for himself as a detective, he became senior inspector and was instrumental in laying out San Fernando and Port of Spain into beats. Fr. de Verteuil recounts that he travelled extensively to all parts of the island on horseback, giving lectures and instructions. Amongst those Irish were Darcy Costelloe, Fahay Flynn, Murphy Peake and Fraser.

The police force was to be severely tested in the last decade of the 19th century with the Hosay Riots and with the Cannes Brulées Riots, when pitched battles were fought both in the countryside and in Port of Spain between poui stick wielding batonniers and policemen armed with riot batons. By 1890, the York and Lancaster regiment that had been stationed at St. James barracks, left Trinidad. They had been stationed here from the conquest, a distinguished corps whose battle honours include the peninsular wars (March 29, 1815) to the 2nd battalion Aribia (Feb 24, 1824), to the whole regiment India (December 12, 1826). To this day, buttons are found bearing the distinctive rose and the numbers 65 and 84.

A great many Irish policemen were to stay on in Trinidad and marry into local families both black and white.

In 1903, the force now considerably strengthened and housed at St. James barracks in quarters vacated by the York & Lancaster regiment, assumed a military character and was turned out in force to deal with the rioters of the Water Riots, who subsequently succeeded in burning down the Red House. Former commissioner Eustace Bernard, who entered the Police Barracks in 1934, remembers a police force cast in the model of the old school, 2000 strong, commanded by Colonel A.S. Mavrogordato, "every officer was white and with few exceptions came from the United Kindgom. They were termed commissioned officers."

Their appointments had to be published in the Royal Gazette, an official British publication. Bernard recalls that the highest rank a constable could get was sergeant major. He remembers the three local men who rose to that rank as Sgt. Major Rose of the ... department, Sgt. Major Woods in charge of training and Sgt. Major Williams in charge of police headquarters. There was a  Sergeants' Mess for non-commissioned officers of the rank of sergeant and above, where no one below that rank may enter and in a similar manner the Officers' Mess.

In those days, there was no such thing as a 44-hour week. Men in training worked for their officers, "making up beds, sweeping floors, cleaning yards and boots, chopping wood etc." Eustace Bernard was in fact the first local man of colour to rise from the rank of constable to that of Commissioner of Police.

Tobago from English to French

Tobago was once a part of the first, original British Empire, like Jamaica, Barbados and the American colonies, but distinct from India, South Africa or Trinidad.

Tobago has several layers of history, which is why you can stand with your face to the wind, overlooking a truly lovely sweep of the blue seas and lush landscape, with the ruins of an early 17th century Dutch windmill just behind you and a great old rusting cannon, marked for a Georgian king who died in the 1820s, at your feet.

You get a feeling for the past and of ancient things, of the creek and "whoosh" of the mill's four wings, its huge 40 ft sails turning in the very same air in which you now stand. The lines of ox carts bringing the cut cane to be ground, the work songs of slaves going to the fields, living, dying, unmarked and unrecorded lives and deaths by the tens of thousands who toiled the Tobagonian soil.

The great estate houses have all but vanished. In the 19th and 20th century, buildings were put upon their old ballast block foundations, and if you have the time and look very carefully, you may find an old piece of iron, maybe some links of chain, a huge hook, a broken hinge, a great copper caldron in which sugar may have been boiled.

Tobago possesses a profound sense of times already past.  In 1769, Port of Spain was a mud and thatch assemblage of huts built in a swamp, just as the Caroni swamp is today, with a handful of Spanish people, forty or fifty of them, a few slaves, all so poor that their living conditions were hardly different from each other.

Tobago, on the other hand, was well into its third, possibly fourth establishment. Its population was arranged with 10,800 slaves, 1,050 free blacks and 2,300 Europeans. Already the upper regions of its central main ridge were designated as "woods for the protection of rains". The treaty of Paris of 1763, which marked the end of the Seven Year War, now made Tobago British. By Royal Proclamation in 1764 the island was divided into parishes. In April 1768, a Legislative Council was convened. Trinidad would not see anything like that for almost 100 years. 54,000 acres of land were sold. This produced £154,000, at a period when the entire establishment in Trinidad, the European men could just arrange one suit of proper clothes between them all (just in the event of visitors from abroad)! This shows how poor Trinidad was in the pre-Cedula days.

Plantation development in Tobago commenced in earnest with the sale of 500 acres at Courland Bay. The first export of sugar came from Bushy Park in St. Mary's Parish. The drive for development was on. The 10,800 slaves bore the brunt of the actual labour of clearing the forest for the planting of a variety of crops, while enduring the appalling conditions of slavery. They cultivated sugar cane on a large scale.

It is hardly surprising that there were several slave revolts during the late 18th century in Tobago. These were more often than not started by the newly arrived slaves. The first slave revolt in 1770 spread from Courland Estate to Mt. Irvine and Riseland; in 1771, two insurrections were put down by the militia. In 1774, the slave revolt on Queen's Bay Estate was also suppressed. The plantation economy, centered as it was on the system of slavery, perceived the slaves as merely a factor in the production of crops, a commodity like axles for carts or grinding wheels for windmills, expensive to buy, requiring upkeep and maintenance, not to be unnecessarily misused or destroyed, but basically - albeit expensively - replaceable.

There was very little money on the plantations. Food, shelter and clothing were provided by the estate. It was self-sufficient in the crafts and skills necessary to maintain its work, stock and tools. Transactions between the estates and London were handled by bills of exchange and a system of credit.

The services necessary to provide for the shipping  and sale of goods and for the management of income were provided by the merchant banker, who operated out of London. He provided the ships that would transport the products of the estates to England and made arrangements for a constant supply of slaves from the west coast of Africa. These were procured by African merchants, mostly Muslims.

The proceeds of the goods sold in England were used to settle the planters' financial commitments and arrange for supplies and stock. Any residuals were credited to the accounts of the planters with the merchant houses. Produce served as the unit of account and medium of exchange and thus was regarded as a form of money.

In 1776, Tobago's economy suffered a serious setback, as hordes of leaf-eating ants destroyed thousands of acres of sugar cane, ravaging plantations in the windward parishes. This forced a change to the cultivation of cotton, which proved to be an early and timely attempt at diversification and, during the next 15 years or so, up to 15,000 acres were changed to cotton cultivation.

In 1778, with the American colonies in rebellion, an American squadron attempted a raid on Tobago. Their squadron comprised two ships of the line, three brigs and a schooner. They were engaged by the British battleship H.M.S. Yarmouth. During the encounter, the American ship Randolph was blown up with her crew of 315 men. The remainder of the squadron withdrew.

Tobago produced in 1780 35,122 cwt. of sugar, 1,868 puncheons of rum and 1,518,000 lb. of cotton, 20,600 lb. of indigo and 1,600 lb. of ginger. There were 1,637 working cattle and 946 horses. Almost 24,000 acres of land had been cleared. Notwithstanding, Tobago with its length of just 26 miles and width of seven, was not an important possession from an agricultural point of view. However, its value to the British crown lay in its strategic military and naval position. It lay well to windward, which was important in the age of sailing ships. Any force collected there could easily be launched against any of the islands, including even Barbados. A battle fleet coming from Tobago would have a speedy opportunity to fall upon an enemy beating against the prevailing wind.

Tobago was basically out of the hurricane area and had excellent harbour for the ships of those days. It has been felt by historians that the defense of the island was neglected in this period, and that the fortifications such as Fort George in 1777 and the small redoubts listed below came a bit late.

The island could boast of a militia of some 350 men. There were two companies of the 62nd regiment and later two companies of the 48th regiment. The French involvement with the rebellious American colonists eventually led to open war between France and England in 1778.  In that year, the French Admiral Comte d'Estaing was in the West Indies with a squadron having 9,000 soldiers on board. He was unable to save St. Lucia from capture by the British, but was able to take St. Vincent and Grenada from the English. The English planters in Tobago saw this as a catastrophe in the making.

A French squadron of nine ships of the line were sighted off the island on 23rd May, 1781. The British under Lt. Governor George Ferguson surrendered only after a gallant 10-day struggle against overwhelming odds.

Ferguson had upon sighting the French, immediately mastered all able-bodied men, some 427, comprised of planters, militia, sailors and regular troops. The French first attempted a landing a Minister Bay, named by the Dutch Luggart's Bay, but high seas drove them off. They tried again at Rockly Bay. Once again the weather proved too bad for a landing.

The following day, they succeeded in putting ashore 3,100 men at Great Courland Bay. Major Hamilton of the militia, who had manned a two-gun battery at Black Rock across the bay, was able to bring the French ships under heavy fire, until he was forced to retire.

Lt. Governor Ferguson in the meantime had retreated and regrouped his men at Concordia, on the heights above Scarborough, and not far from Mason Hall, fighting a guerrilla action all the way.

The French general Philbert Blanchelande in hot pursuit demanded their surrender, having set up a battery at French Fort, which was then a cotton plantation overlooking Concordia. A French attack on the English position failed in the night, as the French lost their way.

Ferguson and his small band refused to surrender, requesting the French general "not to trouble me again upon this point". From the heights of Concordia, Ferguson was able to see more French troops landing in Plymouth and was forced to wait until the dead of the night to fall back to the base of the main ridge, Caledonia Estate. He did this so well that when the French stormed his position the next day, they found that he had gone.

Ferguson fell back through the forest and steep mountain sides and fortified a mountain top position so as to make a final stand. By this time, the French landed some 400 men at Man-of-War Bay, intent to take Ferguson from the rear. Still, the British resisted. It was only when the French started to burn the plantations that Ferguson's force, many of them planters in short of ammunition and food, decided that the wisest course of action would be to surrender. the French congratulated the English on their gallant defense. The conditions and the laws laid down by the English were left unchanged, although Scarborough was renamed Port Louis.

Redoubts in Tobago

Great Courland: two 18-pounders and one 6-pounder

Little Courland: one 18-pounder and one 9-pounder

La Guiria Bay: two 6-pounders

Queen's Bay: two 9-pounders

Bloody Bay: one 6-pounder

Englishman's Bay: one 6-pounder

Castara Bay: one 6-pounder

Sandy Point: two 18-pounders, two 9-pounders

Fort Granby: two 18-pounders, one 9-pounder, four 6-pounders with three 5.5"-mortars

Education and the first Model Schools

Both parties, masters and slaves, were engulfed by the rumours of the impending emancipation. The rumours that the slaves were soon to be freed became more insistent as news from the antislavery lobby in England reached them.

Governor Sir George Fitzgerald Hill, Bart. (1833 - 1839) and the planters had made the strongest representations possible to London and to their friends in high places there. They insisted that any sudden freeing of the slaves would mean absolute ruin for the colony. Estates would be abandoned and, in the event of the slaves becoming violent, even the 19th Regiment and the militia would not be able to safeguard the population. The terrible events in Haiti, the revolution, the slave revolts, the massacres of the Europeans were still in living memory.

They claimed that in view of the acute shortage of slaves since the abolition of the slave trade in 1807, it was to be anticipated that the Africans, when freed, would not return to work on the plantations. There would be no way of avoiding the complete collapse of the colony’s economy. The Europeans would go away, it was said, and the former slaves resort to savagery in the bush.

Emancipation in 1834, however, was one of those significant events that marked both an end and a beginning. In terms of race relations, it marked the end of a period when things were very clear-cut. It was also the end of clearly defined labour relations. Instead, social and occupational ambiguities would now enter the scene of things.

None of the terrible predictions of upheaval and bloodshed came to pass. Yes, plantations were ruined, fortunes were lost, lands changed hands. The labour shortage occurred, and less than 20 years later, fresh labour was found and fortunes were re-made.

In 1838, 20,656 slaves had been freed. Given the size of the island, this was not a large number, particularly bearing in mind the among of women, children and domestics amongst them.

One of the controlling factors of slavery was access to learning. At the end of the period of slavery, only the chosen few could read or write, perhaps no more than a dozen or so. The social, political, religious and emotional dislocation of the vast majority of the former slave population is hard to imagine nowadays - to describe them as ignorant would be to miss the point.

In the middle of all this, the Africans were not entirely unsought after. Rivalries between religions were as keen then as they are now and both the Catholics and the Anglicans vied with each other for converts. With the prohibition against giving education to the Africans gone, the offer of schooling was the attractive way to create converts. The British government also supported the possibilities  of an education for the former slaves’ children - especially since they were French and Patois speaking and had to be taught English. The various denominations were encouraged to start schools. The quality of this education in those schools, however, has been described by historians as low.

As the result of the plantation system and society in the towns being dominated by the French creoles, French language and the culture of the south of France were endemic. Catholicism was entrenched, and the hierarchical structure of the society almost feudal. The British, on the alert, did not want the former slaves to coalesce even further with these alien French, formerly aristocrats of an overturned regime.

There was a political need to break this alliance of interest, formed of a shared alienation to the British Crown. British education was the answer. It would benefit the Africans, and it would serve to gain their loyalty. During the mid-19th century, the majority of the Africans who were socialised French was diluted by the influx of former slaves from other West Indian islands, many from Protestant cultures like Barbados. They came to work in the fields, however, they did not stay there long. Little by little, the process of segmentation of the Africans along denominational and cultural lines crept in - Catholic/French and Protestant/English.

When Lord Harris assumed governorship in 1845, there were about 54 primary schools in Trinidad, many of them organised by different churches. Lord Harris was an unusual individual for his time - he was interested in mass education and voiced the opinion that “education was essential for the lower classes in order to fit them for freedom.”

He felt that education should not be handed over to the denominations, but instead was convinced that these religious bodies were competing for increased numbers in their individual congregations. The pursuit of these various ‘gains of converts’ would only lead to the creation of deep divisions in the society. Lord Harris advocated a state school system, which was secular and in the hands of the government. In thinking this way, Harris understood the inherent problems of a society segmented in various ways - of which he had enough on his hands with the beginning arrival of Indians from the other end of the British empire.

The creation of the education ordinance in 1851 which established a school in every ward, free and secular under the control of a board of education with salaried inspectors, was a landmark event in Trinidad. Dr. Bridget Brereton writes in her book ...:

“Instruction was to be entirely secular, but each week at stated times the clergyman of the majority faith in the ward would undertake to teach religion, with parents free to withdraw their children if they wished.”

In Port of Spain, a ‘Normal School’ was to be set up to train teachers for the ward schools, with ‘Model Schools’ attached to them for the teachers in training to practice and to come to grips with the challenge of their calling. This was the foundation of the school system in Trinidad.

Notwithstanding Lord Harris’ laudable intentions there were problems. Too few new schools came into existence - only 30 by 1870. Language was a real problem. Since English was the only language used for instruction, it went over the heads of most pupils, who spoke only French patois in their homes and in their community. Within a couple years, the population became entirely bi-lingual. There was also the problem of properly trained teachers as well as a lack of motivation to teach in the inadequate and dilapidated buildings that served as schools.

Sir Arthur Gordon, who arrived in Trinidad as governor in 1866, made a decision to take up the challenge of education. Harris’ ward school system of the previous decade had served to lay the foundations.

The Catholic church had become stronger now, as its main adherents, the French creoles, had once more gained financial ascendancy. The Catholics took the view that only state-aided denominational schools would be acceptable to them. They felt convinced that state-run schools were essentially ‘godless’ and that they placed Catholic youths in mortal danger for their souls.

At Governor Gordon’s request, an Irishman, Patrick Keenan, was sent out to investigate. Keenan was an expert in the field of organised education, and he produced a landmark document in the history of education in Trinidad. He recommended that the church schools be allowed state aid under certain circumstances. This met the Catholic churches’ necessities. The education ordinance of 1870 put into place a dual system of state-supported church schools alongside government schools in the wards.

To what extent this beginning of an education system served to divide the emerging society in its lowest and most vulnerable levels is a topic that historians discuss to this day. In the chequered landscape of our society, with its bewildering collection of faiths and creeds did we get off to a bad start?

Next time you take a shortcut through Lord Harris Square in Port of Spain and walk past his missing statue, or stroll down Harris Promenade in San Fernando, spare a thought for a noble man who spared a thought for children.

Insurance in Trinidad and Tobago in the 19th and early 20th Century

Trinidad’s frontier town atmosphere of fly-by-night operators, slight of hand artistes and snakeoil salesmen still dies hard. In the period after the conquest by the British (1797), it was indeed the order of the day. Governor Picton did not hesitate to hang would-be offenders, many a time in advance of the crime, or so it has been alleged.

More than a quarter of a century later, in the Woodford years, things were somewhat calmer. Several British firms set up business in the pre-emancipation period (before 1834), importing all manner of merchandise for sale in the growing town. Many of these traders were Scotsmen. They also served as exporters, shipping out of Port of Spain in 1820 more than 30 million pounds of sugar, 1.7 million pounds of cocoa, 211,555 pounds of coffee, 96,545 pounds of cotton, 524,316 gallons of rum and 471,001 gallons of syrup. In 1850, the value of imports were £476,910 and exports £319,394.

As far as population was concerned in 1832, there were 3,683 whites, 16,302 mixed, about 700 Amerindians, 20,265 slaves and 4,615 ‘Aliens and Strangers’.

With an increasingly properous plantation and commercial sector emerging, producing a middle strata now more secure and free from the fears of the depredations of war and revolt. Individuals with households sought to plan a more secure future for their dependents. Apart from saving money in the vaults of the Colonial Bank, there was a somewhat new and supposedly secure way to save and benefit, known as life assurance. Modern life insurance in the British Empire dates from the foundation of the old Equitable Society, founded in 1762. The application for a charter for the Equitable, however, was firt opposed in the City of London by various vested interests:

“The success of the scheme must depend upon the truth of certain calculation taken upon tables for life and death, whereby the chance of mortality is attempted to be reduced to a certain standard - this is more speculation, never yeat tried in practice, and consequently subject like all other experiments to various chances in teh execution.”

This was of course challenged by the principles of the Equitable, and the charter was established. In other parts of Britain, this ‘experiment’ was soon followed. The Standard life Assurance Company of Scotland was started in 1825. Scotland, known for the thrifty nature of its inhabitants, proved a successful source for the sale of policies. ... The Scottish Widows’ Fund, for example, was a mutual office. ...

Britain’s expanding empire meant more and more of their own nationals living abroad, doing business and administrating colonies all over the world. In 1840, under the guidance of William Thomas Thompson, manager and actuary at Standard Life, who became one of the founders of the Institute of Actuaries of Great Britain, it was decided to establish a new company called the Colonial Life Assurance Company. It would operate in England’s far-flung colonies. In 1846, the Colonial was established in Trinidad. The purpose of this sibling company was to reduce the risk to the parent company. After all, the West Indian colonies had about them something of the unknown.

Within twenty years, the Colonial no longer existed. In the 1860s, Standard Life Assurance was, however, well established in the Caribbean.

Trinidad’s prosperity during this period was significant. In 1865, imports totaled £810,347. Its exports were £820,109. The colony could boast a revenue of £194,087. Its expenditure that year stood at £195,991. The ‘Standard Quarterly’ of 1937 records:

“Business began to open up under Mr. W.E. Hunter’s management, and soon we found ourselves advancing loans on cocoa mortgages. in Trinidad. The late Mr. G. Bruce Austin (Stiggs to his intimates) was the agent at Trinidad. He was one of the most popular men in the West Indies. When loans were advanced to cocoa property owners, one of the conditions of the loan was that a collateral policy had to be taken out, and the great bulk of the West Indies business at the time was obtained in this way. We advanced loans in Trinidad up to £300,000 on porperty, and quite a considerable amount on personal security. It is worthy of remark that the latter, due to Austin’s careful selection, never involved the Company in the loss of a penny.”

The Standard Life Assurance Company, through its offshoot, was amongst the first of its kind, if not actually the first life office, but it would soon have many competitors.

Other firms of insurance established themselves. Both fire and general firms found a footing in this growing economy. Recorded in Daniel Hart’s book ‘The island of Trinidad’ were:

Barbados Mutual Life Assurance Society - Agents, Turnbull, Stewart & Co.

City of Glasgow Assurance Company - Agents, Henry Watts & Co.

Colonial Life Assurance Company - Agents, John Cumming.

Commercial Union Assurance Company - Agents, L. Labastide & Co.

Home & Colonial Life Assurance Company - Agents, Scott, Julyan & Co.

Imperial Fire Insurance Company - Agents, M. Burnett.

La Tutelar Mutual Life Insurance Company of Madrid - Agents, O’Connor Bros.

Liverpool and London Insurance Company - Agents, Henry Watts & Co.

Mercantile Fire Insurance Company - Agents, Turnbull, Stewart & Co.

Northern Fire Insurance Company - Agents, O’Connor Bros.

Phoenix Fire Insurance Company - Agents, John Fuller.

Queen Insurance Company - Agents, A. Campbell & Co.

Royal Insurance Company (Fire & Life) - Agents, T.A. Finlayson.

Scottish Amicable Life Assurance Company - Agent, J.C. Alston.

Sun Fire Office - Agents, Hume, Bernard & Co.

Victoria Life Assurance Company - Agents, Charles Fabien.

Lloyd’s Agents - Hume, Bernard & Co.