British shipping journal
Lloyd's List
is one of the world's oldest continuously running journals, having provided weekly shipping news in London as early as 1734.
[1]
It was published daily until 2013 (when the final print issue, number 60,850, was published), and is now published digitally.
Also known simply as
The List
, it was begun by Edward Lloyd, the proprietor of
Lloyd's Coffee House
, as a source of information for merchants' agents and insurance underwriters who met regularly in his establishment on
Lombard Street
to negotiate insurance coverage for trading vessels.
[2]
It continues to provide this information in addition to
marine insurance
, offshore energy, logistics, market data, research, global trade and law information, and shipping news.
[3]
History
[
edit
]
The earliest form of
Lloyd's List
was estimated by some to have begun by 1692. One historian, Michael Palmer, wrote that: "No later than January 1692, Lloyd began publishing a weekly newsletter, ‘Ships Arrived at and Departed from several Ports of England, as I have Account of them in London... [and] An Account of what English Shipping and Foreign Ships for England, I hear of in Foreign Ports’".
[4]
Around that time,
Lloyd’s News
was published three times a week with no particular emphasis on shipping from 1696 to 1697.
[
citation needed
]
However, claims that
Lloyd's List
is the oldest continuously published newspaper in the world are disputed. The
World Association of Newspapers
lists several earlier, extant titles.
[5]
Thomas Jemson inherited Lloyd's Coffee House in 1727 and founded the
Lloyd's List
that is known today when he launched a weekly shipping intelligence publication. Publication was weekly until March 1735, then twice weekly, on Tuesdays and Fridays, according to Palmer.
[
citation needed
]
In 1769, the coffee house moved to Pope's Head Alley and from there, the New
Lloyd’s List
began, according to Lloyd's Register.
[
citation needed
]
The paper was published every day except Sundays from 1 July 1837. In July 1884,
Lloyd's List
merged with the
Shipping and Mercantile Gazette
.
Lloyd's List
has spawned several spin-off titles, including sister title
Insurance Day
.
In 2009,
Lloyd's List
went through a major re-design that encompassed both the masthead and the newspaper itself. Between 2011 and 2017, a
Lloyd’s List
operated a mobile
app
.
[6]
Beginning in 2013,
Lloyd's List
was published in digital format only, as it was found that fewer than 2% of customers used the print version.
[7]
In 2022,
Informa
sold
Lloyd's List
to
Montagu Private Equity
.
[8]
The business was then reorganised as Maritime Insights & Intelligence Limited.
References
[
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]
Further reading
[
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]
- Cameron, Alan, and Roy Farndon.
Scenes from sea and city: Lloyd's list 1734-1984
(Lloyd's List, 1984), 250th. special anniversary supplement.
- McCusker, John J. "The Early History of ‘Lloyd's List’."
Historical Research
64#155 (1991): 427-431.
External links
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]