The History of Lloyd's and of Marine Insurance in Great Britain; With an Appendix Containing Statistics Relating to Marine Insurance

📗 This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1876 edition. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER XVIII. Lloyd's Registry Of Shipping. HE necessity of keeping some record of shipping, so as to be able to discover, in a reasonable time, and without much personal trouble and inconvenience, the age, condition, state of repair, and general condition of vessels which their owners wished to have insured, must have been felt at a very early period by the underwriters. It appears, from various indications, that the earliest frequenters of Lloyd's Coffee-house in Lombard Street kept, for their own guidance, tabular accounts of such ships as were likely to be offered them for "a line," and these lists, likely enough, passed from hand to hand, the mutual interchange of information being obviously to the interest of all. The earliest of these tables were, like the " newsletters" furnishing commercial and shipping intelligence, which preceded "Lloyd's List," not printed. In the numbers of " Lloyd's News," from September, 1696, to February, 1697, commented upon already at some length, there is frequent mention of "Ships' Lists," and from the notices here, and in contemporary pamphlets, there is little doubt that they were written documents, not very dissimilar to the "news-letters," and differing from the latter only in furnishing, not general intelligence, but practical information for persons connected with shipping, more particularly merchants and underwriters. The first attempt to put these "Ships' Lists" in type was in all probability contemporaneous with the establishment of the organ of Lloyd's, still in existence, having reached the goodly age of one hundred and fifty years. It was hitherto believed, and is usually asserted, that the oldest printed register of ships was established in 1760, but careful investigation proves this to...