When Highwaymen were Insured.

Kaipara and Waitemata Echo, 3 July 1914, Page 2

When Highwaymen were Insured.

THE ROMANCE OF A GREAT INSTITUTION.

In the history of business and commerce there is no more romantic chapter than that which concerns Lloyd's, that great organisation of brokers and underwriters which conducts all the maritime insurance in the world, and, as a side-line, so to speak, accepts all sorts of freak insurance. As many readers are doubtless aware, one may secure at Lloyd's insurance against almost any conceivable risk —against twins, bad weather, appendicitis or other illness, earthquakes, and what-not. Curiously enough, these queer insurances played an important part in the early history of Lloyd's, which was so named after Edward Lloyd, a man who kept in Tower Street, towards the close of the seventeenth century, a coffee-house which was the great meeting-place at that time for persons interested in shipping and matters connected with shipping. A WONDERFUL SYSTEM. Lloyd was a man of great enterprise, and he was really the originator of the great system of maritime and commercial intelligence which has been so developed that today Lloyd's agents are" to be found on every coast in the world. Day, by day they report by electric cable: and wireless telegraphy the passing, or arrival of vessels in their parti-' cular corner of the globe, and it iff! thus that the world, through the' medium of Lloyd's, is able to keep; in touch with the movements oil every ship. And in a number of! great volumes kept by Lloyd's is daily entered the position of every! British ship, or the date and place at which it was last spoken. For the greater convenience of merchants meeting at his coffee-: house, Lloj'd founded, in 1696, a shipping paper, which he himseli edited. When, however, he attempt' ed to criticise in sprint the attitude of* the House of Lords with, regard to silks the paper was immediately suppressed, and was not allowed to be republished until thirty year^ later. ; FIRST MARINE INSURANCE. ; At the same time, however, Lloyd was often able to render the Government service, and he was the first to communicate the news of the capture of Porto Bello by Admiral Vernon after the death of Admiral Hosier. There is preserved a-t Lloyd's what is believed to be the oldest marine insurance policy in existence, dated January 20th, 1680. It was issued to Richard May "upon goods and merchandise, and also upon the good ship Golden Fleece, 250 tons (Gasper Hicks,- master), from Lisbon to Venice, at the rate of four pounds per cent." , There was a clique which gathered at Lloyd's coffee-house, however, the. members of which indulged in all forms of gambling, and it would appear that they shocked the more staid clients of Lloyd's. for these, in the latter part of tho. eighteenth century, migrated, and, leaving the, coffee-house, removed their business to the Royal Exchange-, »hi»r<? they established themsc-1 v-.s *.« a society in 1774, in a building ■■»:hic"i stood on the site of the present inatitu-, tion. , j EXTRAORDINARY GAMBLING. ; As an illustration of the gambling in speculative insurance wMr:h was carried on at Lloyd's coffee-house, it might be mentioned that the lives of highwaymen who had fallen with-' in the clutches of the law, or were, likely to do so, Were frequently insured. One insurance is still re-: corded of the possibilities of the' execution of two Jacobite Scotch1 peers after the 1745 rebellion, at a' premium of 1-J per. sent.; the life of' John Wilkes was insured at a pre-1 mhmvof 5 per cent., that of Alder-, man Bond at 7 per cent. The re-; turn of Wilkes to Parliament was in- ; sured at premiums varying from five to fifty guineas, and his election at' Middlesex at the premium of from twenty to seventy guineas. The chance of war with France was in-' sured against at a premium of ten guineas, and a dissolution of Parliament at a premium of fifteen1 guineas. Travellers might insure their return from foreign countries at various rates. ' Henry, when going to Constantinople, insured his return for £1,250 on the payment1 of £450. I N It has been truly" observed that the' country was greatly indebted to Lloyd's for the great service rem*' dered during the wars which were „]most continuous from 1775 to to 13.15 ; and incidentally these wars led to the development of Lloyd's, for they attracted marine insurance to England from all parts of the world. ' And some measure of the British success at sea was due to the patriotic zeal of "underwriters in insuring supplies that were, brought to England Otherwise it would have been impossible to bring commodities into the country. "Tit Bits."

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