Typed and Manuscript Staff Reviews or Appraisals for Employees of the Sun Insurance Office 1925 to 1963

Comprising 229 sheets of paper, many utilising both sides, robustly rivet or screw-bound, between two thick, heavy brown cloth covered boards, with marbled endpapers front and rear. The binding is in good order, the cloth is slightly marked and rubbed. The contents are toned or marked to varying degrees depending on paper quality, age and use, some of the older and more often altered sheets with functional repairs to tears, or damage to the edges. From the archives of the RSA Insurance Group with their barcode strip to the front pastedown. Containing the appraisals of staff members of the Sun Insurance Office from across the country, by the visiting General Manager or other senior official, at irregular intervals throughout their career. All, or certainly the vast majority, appear to be men employed by the company, giving: name, date of birth, branch location, date of first appointment, father's occupation, previous employment, willingness or otherwise to serve the Company overseas, doctor's notes, salary and duties. These basic details are followed by the comments at each review, with some employees serving from the mid-1920s through to the early 1960s. An example of the latter being an R. S. Shelley, born long enough before the First World War to have enjoyed a happy Edwardian childhood, yet young enough to have avoided fighting in the conflict, who is first described as a Clerk in 1925: "Good bright boy, anxious to train on for Inspector"; is still a clerk in 1938 and engaged to be married; in 1951: "Very good type. Owns his own house. Mortgage paid off. Steady and sensible."; is Chief Clerk in the Leicester branch by 1956: "dependable clerk but does not give the immediate impression of having a big personality."; "Had a rather worried expression" in 1960, and finally by 1961 he is Branch Superintendent: "A man of some character but little personality. A rather superficial dismal approach to affairs which conceals a hard and sound worker. [] his wife has not really settled down [] Inclined to grumble about trivialities [] Should regard him as having reached his ceiling from the point of view of status and respectability". Each report is either added directly to the sheet by typing or some magic copying method, a tipped-on typed slip, or occasionally written in ink by the senior Company man carrying out the review. Another in the Nottingham branch is described as: "Typically Newcastle. Will smooth down in time". A young Pearson, aged 21, whose father is a Bus Driver, has one entry only: "A rather flabby young man with a lackadaisical manner. He is unmarried and his principal interests are ice-skating and photography.". The Sun merged with the Alliance Assurance Company Limited in 1959, and there are insights into how the merger went, with comments regarding how well the employee gets on with his opposite number at the "Alliance", and evidently information being traded between the employees of both companies, regarding important matters such as salaries, putting pressure on the Company to up their own salary to that paid for the corresponding position in the other. The whole a fascinating insight into how staff appraisals were handled at large British companies in the pre-Human Resources era, not to mention a tremendously valuable record of the lives and concerns of a particular cohort across the country during the inter-war and post-WW2 years, indicating how they were and what state their lives were in at numerous intervals. Ironically, the identities of the appraisers are much harder to deduce, often giving only their initials or title, many of whom will have vanished leaving less trace than the underlings they summarised in a few lines, though doubtless others received peerages and have their own Wikipedia pages. …