Francis Norie-Miller

Sir Francis Norie-Miller, 1st Baronet (11 March 1859 – 4 July 1947) was a British insurance company manager director. He was also a Liberal and later Liberal National politician. Although he was born in England, his chief associations were with Scotland and in particular the city of Perth. In 1936, he was created a Baronet with the title of Norie-Miller of Cleeve in the New Year’s Honours List for political and public service in the County of Perth and for his local philanthropy.

Norie-Miller was born at Cheshunt in Hertfordshire, the son of Henry Miller, the Chief Statistical Officer for HM Customs and his wife Anne Norrie. Norie-Miller was educated privately and then trained for the law but he never practised and began a career in insurance instead. In 1884 he married Grace Harvey Day, the daughter of the vicar of Cheshunt. They had two sons, Claud, who was killed on active service in 1917 and Stanley who went on to succeed his father in the baronetcy and in business. They also had a daughter, Elwena. Norie-Miller's first wife died in 1931 and three years later he married his secretary Florence Jean Belfrage McKim, of Scone in Perthshire.

Norie-Miller began his insurance career in London, then moved to Glasgow and for practically the next sixty years he was a chief officer of a number of insurance companies. He was particularly associated with the General Accident, Fire and Life Assurance Association, which he joined soon after it was incorporated in 1885. He played a crucial role in developing its business base in the United Kingdom and later was central in the company’s expansion overseas, most notably in the USA. Under his dynamic direction the company built up a worldwide business. He went on to be its Chairman and Managing Director. The portrait of Norie-Miller which hung in the company board room in Perth bore the legend "Founder of the Company". One historian of the insurance industry has described Norie-Miller as one of ‘the great insurance autocrats of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries’.

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