Coffee And Commerce: Visiting The Amazing Lloyd’s Building

The Worshipful Company of Insurers, one of the City’s livery companies, says that ‘London Insures the World’. It is safe to say that finance and insurance are crucial to the history of London and its place today as a global city.

Lloyd’s of London has been at the heart of that story since the 1680s. I was lucky enough to be given special access to visit their impressive headquarters in the City, to learn about their history and have a look at the fascinating array of artefacts they have there. 

I was expecting an interesting visit, but was amazed at just how much there is to see in the building. Unfortunately it is not open to the public so hopefully this blog post suffices as a behind-the-scenes tour.

Humble Coffeehouse Origins

Coffee was first imported into England in the late 1500s from Turkey and the Middle East. It was initially an expensive, upper class product, seen to have miraculous medicinal properties. However, as supply increased and the price dropped, coffeehouses started to open across the city. The first in the country was in Oxford in 1650 and the second in London in 1652, where the Jamaica Winehouse is today, just off Cornhill. 

Coffeehouses particularly blossomed after the Great Fire of London in 1666 and the subsequent rebuilding of the city. They became places for the professional classes to meet, chat, debate, exchange news and to carry out business. 

Edward Lloyd’s coffeehouse is first mentioned in 1688 on Tower Street, near the river. There were around 80 coffeehouses in the city by this time and each had its own association with a particular group of merchants or area of interest. Edward Lloyd’s coffeehouse specialised in shipping information and was a bustling hub of shipowners and captains. 

From Coffee To Commerce

Lloyd’s started renting out ‘boxes’ (tables) where businessmen would sell insurance to shipowners, spreading the risk of overseas trading missions. This was a crucial factor in the spread of British trade, commerce and ultimately the British empire around the globe. Lloyd’s played a critical role, for example, in insuring slave ships. Lloyd’s pretty much had a monopoly on insuring slave ships until the abolition of the slave trade in 1807. More on this further down.

Lloyd’s regularly published shipping news for its patrons and in 1734 the first ‘Lloyd’s List’ was published. It was published by Thomas Jemson under the trusted Lloyd’s name and is still going today, these days online, and is one of the oldest continually running journals.

Lloyd’s became the most trusted source for all shipping and maritime news. In 1859 a journalist described the underwriting room of Lloyd’s: ‘Not a breeze can blow in any latitude, not a storm can burst, not a fog can rise, in any part of the world, without recording its history here.’

New Premises

A group of marine ship insurers under the name Lloyd’s moved to 16 Lombard Street in 1691. There is a blue plaque on the outside of the Sainsburys on the site today, marking the spot. 

In 1769 a breakaway group formed ‘New Lloyd’s at 5 Pope’s Head Alley. These underwriters prided themselves on professionalism and moved away from reckless gambling on risk for a quick profit. In a few years the ‘Old Lloyd’s’ had ceased to exist. In 1774 it formed into a more formal society, the ‘Subscribers of Lloyd’s’, moved into the Royal Exchange. 

The first ‘Lloyd’s Act’ was passed in 1871 by Parliament incorporating the Society of Lloyd’s as a corporation for the first time and established its constitution. Lloyd’s is therefore not a company, it is a partially mutualised marketplace. Within that marketplace multiple financial backers, grouped in syndicates, come together to pool and spread risk.

A Unique Building

In 1928 Lloyd’s moved into the first building that it owned outright at 12 Leadenhall Street, designed by Edwin Cooper. 

By the 1950s, more space was needed and in 1958 the market moved to a new building on Lime Street, designed by Terence Heysham.

In 1986, the current building on Lime Street was finished, designed by Richard Rogers.

It took eight years to build and consists of 33,500 cubic metres of concrete, 30,000 square metres of stainless steel cladding and 12,000 square metres of glass.

Sometimes referred to as the ‘inside-out’ building, it is an example of an architectural style known as ‘bowellism’. This means all the building’s services, such as ducts, lifts and staircases, are on the outside of the building.

This was predominantly to leave the inside as spacious, open and airy, to maximise the trading floor space. Another example of Bowellism is the Pompidou Centre in Paris.

Reaction was mixed when it opened, with some comparing it to ‘an oil rig’, a ‘coffee percolator’ and a ‘building on life support’. However, it received many awards and it is the youngest ever building to be given a Grade I listing, giving it the maximum level of protection from any changes. It gained this in 2011, just 25 years after it was constructed.

There is a model of the building on one of the upper floors of the building made by Richard Rogers.

What To See

The Loss Book

The Lloyd’s Loss Book was introduced in the 1770s to record the details of lost ships. Today it can be found in the middle of the Underwriting Room and is still updated with quill and ink by the ‘Head Waiter’. The staff are still referred to as ‘waiters’ going back to the days of the coffeehouse and they wear a traditional livery. 

One of the greatest losses for Lloyd’s was when the Titanic sunk in 1912. Only a few months the Titanic set sail, a broker called Willis Faber & Co insured the Titanic at Lloyd’s and her sister ship, the Olympic, on behalf of the White Star Line.

Many Lloyd’s syndicates put their names on the slip, covering amounts ranging from £10,000 to £75,000. The hull alone was insured at £1m. Willis negotiated a favourable premium for the ‘unsinkable’ ship of just £7,500. Lloyd’s paid out in full within 30 days of the disaster.

The Nelson Collection

Down on the lower ground floor is the Nelson Collection.

After the Battle of the Nile in 1798, when Admiral Nelson destroyed Napoleon’s Fleet, the Lloyd’s Committee raised £38,000 for the bereaved and wounded and donated a silver dinner service to Nelson as gratitude. This started a long association with Nelson, celebrating him for protecting the country’s shores and maritime trade. 

In 1803, the Lloyd’s Patriotic Fund was founded to provide for the wounded and dependants of those killed in the Napoleonic Wars. 

They have many items related to Nelson, including the logbook from HMS Euryalus, containing the message Nelson sent to his fleet ahead of the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805: “England expects that every man will do his duty.” 

This is a combined knife and fork.

Nelson had lost an arm at the Battle of Santa Cruz de Tenerife in 1797 and therefore the Countess Spencer gifted him a fork with a steel knife edge set into its side, so that he could eat one handed. If a spoon and fork is a ‘spork’, I suppose that makes this a ‘knork’ or perhaps a ‘fife’. 

Below is a snuff box gifted by Nelson to Lady Emma Hamilton, with whom he had been having a very public affair. 

This is a cane and telescope gifted by Nelson to Thomas Hardy, one of Nelson’s closest friends. Hardy served with Nelson in all four of his major battles. 

Links To Slavery

They also have an exhibition all about the links of Lloyd’s to slavery. As mentioned above, Lloyd’s played a crucial role in the triangular slave trade, insuring the ships that transported goods to West Africa to then be exchanged for slaves. The slaves were then taken to North America for sale and the money and goods gained in the sale brought back to Britain. The exhibition is called Bearing Witness, Learning from the Legacy of Lloyd’s links to Slavery. 

They have, for example, a ‘bill of lading’ (the record of the receipt of goods) for 100 enslaved people trafficked in 1738. 

They also have rare risk books showing evidence of the underwriting of slave ships. This one is titled in the exhibiton as ‘Underwriting souls’.

The Lutine Bell 

In the centre of the underwriting room is the Lutine Bell. 

In 1799 City of London merchants had collected £1 million in gold and silver bullion to be lent to Hamburg to help boost its economy during the Napoleonic Wars. HMS Lutine, carrying the treasure, ran aground in a gale with the loss of all the crew and goods. The ship and cargo had been insured by Lloyd’s and the claim was paid in full.

In 1859 the bell was salvaged from the wreck and since 1928 had hung in the Rostrum, an altar-like mahogany structure designed by Sir Edwin Cooper. Traditionally a ship’s bell rings out when another ship goes missing.

The Lutine Bell is rung today to mark ceremonial occasions, such as the deaths of King George VI, Winston Churchill and Queen Elizabeth II. It also rang once on 11 September 2001.

The Old Library 

Various parts of the previous buildings were saved and transferred into the new building, including in some cases, whole rooms. 

This is the Old Library, it was part of the 1928 Leadenhall Street building. Portraits of previous Lloyd’s chairmen line the walls and today it is used for events and talks. 

The Adam Room

The Adam Room on the 11th floor is described as the ‘jewel of the Lloyd’s Building’. 

It was designed by Robert Adam in 1763 for the Earl of Shelburne at Bowood House in Wiltshire. What is it then doing here in the Lloyd’s Building? 

In the 1950s, Bowood was being pulled down and representatives from Lloyd’s travelled to Wiltshire with the intention of buying a marble fireplace for the chairman’s office on Lime Street. They ended up purchasing the entire room. It weighed more than 30 tonnes and had to be cut up into 1500 separate pieces to be transported and reassembled.

Thank you very much for reading! You can find more of London’s amazing historical spots below.