Genealogy Chat

My cousin has sent me an obituary for grandfather's brother and I will post the info she has given me below.

My cousin has asked me to see if I can search and find further info about both grand father's brother William John Bloomfield and our grandfather Frederick John Bloomfield who also worked for the same insurance company. She is particularly interested in their time with the company as she already has birth, death certs. The Company was the Mutual Life & Citizens' Assurance company of Australia and when William passed away 1938 he was joint managing director having worked there for nearly fifty years. And family folklore is that a picture of his hung in the lobby of the Office building for many years. Our grandfather left the business much earlier (1904) to take up faming west of Brisbane but used to travel between Brisbane and Sydney and is believed to have been an inspector for the company. Is it possible that the company would have archives or have kept staff records etc?

Mutual Life & Citizens' Assurance (popularly referred to as 'MLC') is long gone now. If I recall correctly, MLC was bought by NZI Life Insurance Ltd, which was in turn bought by Prudential Assurance, which was in turn bought by Colonial. Colonial was bought by Commonwealth Bank and the part of the business related to 'life book' products spun of into the current Sovereign Assurance company. Somewhere along the line of acquisitions, the MLC brand name was sold off to LendLease Corp, and from there it found its way to the National Australia Bank and is effectively their wealth management brand, however, as far as I'm aware the brand is about the only thing from the Mutual Life & Citizens' Assurance company that reached NAB ownership. (Sir) John Garvan was at the helm of MLC for many years up until the 1920s. You might want to hunt up a copy of 'Life Insurance in Australia', by A. C. Gray, (Melb, 1977), to see if your relatives get a mention in there. Cheers, Bill (ex Prudential employee)

Thanks so much for that information Bill. I will send it off to my cousin who is concentrating on that branch of the family. I think that perhaps to find more info may be a hard task.

Hi The State Library of NSW catalogue (http://www.sl.nsw.gov.au/webcat/ and search on Mutual Life Assurance) says that the Mitchell Library hold Annual Reports for MLCA from 1920-1960,so there might be some mention of William Bloomfield in them. He might have even written a report or forward. You will need a readers card, which you can get on the day of visiting, and look through them in the Reading Room. Diane

Thanks for the info Di. I have sent you a PM.