Castles, Customs, and Kings: True Tales by English Historical Fiction Authors

Author:English Historical Fiction Authors
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Debra Brown, Madison Street Publishing, M.M. Bennetts, English Historical Fiction
Publisher: Madison Street Publishing
Published: 2013-09-19T00:00:00+00:00

LLOYD’S: LIFEBLOOD OF BRITISH COMMERCE AND STARBUCKS OF ITS DAY

BY LINDA COLLISON

Ships have always played a major role in the import and export of goods; even today, ninety percent of world trade travels by sea. Yet there are obvious risks to be assumed when deep water and Mother Nature, pirates and enemy ships are involved.

The concept of maritime insurance is as old as civilization. Thousands of years ago Chinese river traders minimized their risk by deliberately spreading their cargo throughout several ships. The Babylonians practiced bottomry, an arrangement in which the ship master borrowed money upon the bottom of his vessel, and forfeited the ship itself to the creditor, if the money with interest was not paid upon the ship’s safe return.

About 600 A.D., Danish merchants began forming guilds to insure their members against losses at sea, and merchant cities such as Venice and Florence started using a form of mutual insurance recorded in documents. The Lombards brought the concept of marine insurance to northern Europe and England in the 13th century where the Hanseatic League further developed the means to protect their joint economic interests.

Permit me to fast-forward four hundred years to the 17th century—the rise of English merchants and the search for new markets abroad. Let’s pop in to visit London, now an important trade center, and walk along the waterfront….

Lloyd’s of London began as a coffee shop on Tower Street, founded by Edward Lloyd in 1688. His establishment, located near the waterfront, soon became a popular meeting place where ship owners and merchants could meet with financiers to discuss ways to match the risks they faced at sea with the capital needed to insure them.

Coffeehouses were then enjoying a great popularity in London and many other European cities. By 1675 there were more than 3,000 of them throughout England. Coffeehouses were social places where men with similar interests met to exchange news and do business, while enjoying the stimulating brew. Much like your corner Starbucks where friends surf for jobs on their laptops while sipping Frappuccinos and interviews are conducted over Venti Iced Skinny Mochas, 17th century Londoners did business while getting buzzed on the bean.

Lloyd’s was never an insurance company, per se, but instead was a market—a regular gathering of people for the purchase and sale of provisions or other commodities. At Lloyd’s coffeehouse merchants and shipmasters caught up on the latest shipping news, bid on cargos of captured prizes, and obtained insurance for their ventures. The underwriters, wealthy men referred to as “Names,” were the individuals who pledged their own money to insure a particular voyage.

In 1691, Edward Lloyd relocated his coffee house from Tower Street to Lombard Street, where a blue plaque hangs today. The business carried on in this location until 1774 when the participating individuals moved to the Royal Exchange on Cornhill and called themselves the Society of Lloyd’s. An Act of Parliament in 1871 gave the business a sound legal footing, incorporating it. Although Ed Lloyd died in 1713, his name

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