Mrs Jobbins
Mrs Jobbins became the Prudential housekeeper in 1848 soon after the newly established company moved into its first permanent premises at Chatham Place. In 1872 an old member of staff recalled meeting Mrs Jobbins every day at breakfast time and wrote: “I seldom saw her except at a tea-table… She stood at the end of the table cutting bread and butter at steam-engine pace. As each hungering mortal arrived with his tea-ticket, she would hobble to the door and call to the floor above in tones that might have been falsetto: ‘Another aigg Milly!’”
Prudential’s first permanent offices were located at 14 Chatham Place: a five-storey building overlooking the Thames. The surrounding area was filled with rival insurance companies and the Institute of Actuaries (then less than a year old) occupied nearby premises at 11 Chatham Place. Soon after moving in, Prudential engaged Mrs Jobbins at three shillings a week to clean the offices and make up the fires each morning. Her duties were not too onerous: the accommodation comprised only one room on the ground floor, three rooms on the first floor, a closet, a strong room and a coal cellar. Nevertheless, the Directors were pleased with her work and met her demand for a rise of two shillings a week in 1849.
The company moved into new offices at 35 Ludgate Hill in 1851, formerly the location of the notorious Fleet prison. These premises were much larger and closer to the commercial heart of London than Chatham Place. From the large windows at the front of the building, staff could witness at first hand events of national importance. When the Duke of Wellington died in 1852, staff were allowed to watch as the funeral procession filed past on its way to St Paul’s Cathedral. The new premises consisted of a front office and a building, unconnected with it, known as the ‘Back House’. Mrs Jobbins’ office and stores were based within this fairly dark and dingy ‘Back House’ which was later linked to the reconstructed and modernised front office by a bridge.
As time went on, Mrs Jobbins and her team began to take on more diverse work for the rapidly growing company. By 1870 a staggering amount of paper passed through the office. The first day of each week brought some 2,000 letters with about 1,000 items on the other days, delivered by a special cart from the General Post Office. Each day, Mrs Jobbins would arrive early and sort the mail bags by first emptying the contents on the floor before handing over the sorted bags to the correct clerks’ department.
Mrs Jobbins retired during the early 1860s. Prudential’s earliest offices have not survived to the present day: 14 Chatham Place was demolished in 1862 and 35 Ludgate Hill was destroyed by enemy action during the Second World War.
