Publisher's Synopsis
On 2 February 1861 two young men met in London, tradition has it in a coffee shop in City Road. Joseph Degge, born in Staffordshire, the son of a farm labourer, was 24 and had worked in Liverpool in the pub trade and as a clerk. Henry Ridge, a Londoner, was two years younger and a carpenter. His father was a cheesemonger. Both men were married, Degge had a young daughter, and they were now working for an organisation, founded a decade earlier, that provided insurance against funeral expenses. By the end of the meeting, Degge and Ridge had decided to set up a business in competition with their employer, to be called the Royal London Life Insurance and Benefit Society.
