The Rev James Gillman
The Reverend James Gillman played an important role in Prudential’s affairs for over 27 years, serving as company Chairman for 25 years. During a speech given at the 1859 Annual General Meeting he remarked that ‘we have not been a board of great names, yet we have been a working industrious board, and we have endeavoured, as far as we could conscientiously, to discharge those duties which we have undertaken.’
The Prudential Archives do not record how Gillman became involved with the company: he may well have been one of those who responded to a newspaper appeal for backers. Whatever his motivation, he joined at a time when Prudential was keen to expand and enlarge the business.
Prudential was founded in 1848 and by the early 1850s the company was growing in size and confidence. New permanent staff were hired and Prudential leased new offices located within the commercial heart of the city. However, the company had only been in existence for four years, and it had yet to achieve enough stability and security to secure its long term survival. Only 139 policies had been sold during 1851, bringing premiums of £1,837, and the number of shares sold, after three years, totalled just 3,207.
Gillman was appointed chairman in 1852: the third individual to hold that post. Immediately prior to Gillman’s appointment, Prudential had uncovered a series of financial irregularities dating from the company’s first year of business. One of Gillman’s first acts therefore was to appoint a committee to report in detail on the accounts and, thereafter, inspect them weekly (a forerunner of the Finance Committee). This did much to strengthen the company’s position.
The first years of Gillman’s chairmanship witnessed a good deal of further consolidation and reorganisation. New prospectuses were issued, limits placed on the amounts that could be insured, and a new team of agents was appointed, including branch offices in Birmingham, Liverpool and Manchester.
James Gillman held the post of chairman until 1877 when he died aged 69.
