The Room at Lloyd's in 1906

Heath's early years

Heath was born to a naval family in 1859.  His father was a distinguished Navy officer who was later knighted by the Queen Victoria.

But early childhood deafness prevented Heath from sailing the high seas.  Instead, after leaving school he took a job filling inkwells at a firm of Lloyd’s underwriters.   It was not long before his courage, individualism and vision shook up the conservative world of handlebar moustaches, high stools and quill pens.

At 18, Heath started at Lloyd’s on a £100 pounds a year, and by 21 he became an underwriting member helped along by a £7,000 loan from his father, which he quickly repaid.

The London market was famous for, and wrote exclusively, marine and fire risks.  But it didn’t take long for Heath to change that.

In 1877, Heath was approached by the Hand in Hand Insurance Company for the reinsurance of its fire policies and made the bold decision to accept the risk.

“Heath found the novelty an attraction, not a deterrent,” according to Lloyd’s historian D.E.W. Gibb. “If the risk was a bad one, then either the rate must be appraised to an appropriate level, or it must be turned down. But the risk that had nothing against it except its novelty was the best of all risks to write, for the underwriter who accepted it would be starting on the ground floor and establishing himself as a market before his competitors.”