Goad map

Goad plans a.k.a. Fire Insurance Plans

The most significant fire insurance plans are those produced by the firm Charles E. Goad Ltd. Charles E Goad (1848-1910) was born in London and in 1869 moved to Canada. From 1875, Goad began to compile and publish his own large-scale plans for Canadian cities. By 1885, he had returned to Britain where he established a branch of his company, Charles E. Goad Ltd, in London. By the end of nineteenth century, the company had produced plans of main British cities, and some of the main cities of Denmark, France, Egypt, Turkey, The West Indies, Mexico, Chile, Venezuela, South Africa and Rhodesia. Operations in Canada ceased in 1918, from then London became the only office. The goad plans were published in full colour and they cover a large part of the central urban complex, with especial consideration being given to warehousing districts, port facilities and factories. Particular attention was directed to the fire-fighting facilities showing water pipelines, hydrant locations and reservoirs. Residential areas are not covered. Private dwellings are only covered when they are located in businesses or commercial areas. They were made at the scale 1:480 (1 inch to 40 feet) for the British cities and 1:600 (1 inch to 50 feet) for foreign towns Goad plans show, by means of colour and symbol, considerable information on land use, internal and external building construction, height, streets width and names, property number and properties lines. The different colours represent specific types of building material and provide some guidance to the flammability of different structures.

Due to changes in methods of doing business within the Insurance Companies during the 1950’s and 1960’s, the market for fire insurance plans declined and the company commenced the publication of a series of Shopping Centre Plans. The firm ceased the production of fire insurance plans in 1970. Between 1885 and 1970, 53 British city centres had been surveyed. 

In 1985, Goad Company started the publication of Out of Centre Shopping plans. (see section 4 for more detailed information). Nowadays, FIPs have a very important historical and sociological value: they can help to put an individual building in its original context, or show how a neighbourhood has changed over the years.

Links

• http://www3.bell.net/max-com/Goad.html
• "Fire Insurance Plans" article by Gwyn Rowley
• Goad links at Experian
• [1]

Other sources

• Rowley, Gwyn, (1984) British fire insurance plans. Goad
• Rowley, Gwyn and Shepherd, Peter, (1976) 'A source of elementary, spatial data for town centre research in Britain'. Area8 3 , 201-208.
• A catalogue of fire insurance plans published by Chas E. Goad 1878-1970. Part A 'British Isles'. Part B 'Foreign'. Goad, 1984.

[2]