Merchants, mariners and mavericks Lloyd's Agents, the first

Merchants, mariners and mavericksLloyd’s Agents, the first 200 years

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1 | Merchants, mariners and mavericks – Lloyd’s Agents, the first 200 years




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Writers: Lee Coppack and Lucy Jolin

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ISBN: 978-0-9549961-6-1


Contents

Acknowledgements 4

Foreword – Dr Richard Ward 5

Chapter One: ‘A regular and universal system’: The first Agents 6

Chapter Two: The end of war and the challenges of peace 17

Chapter Three: Fire, the Falklands and ‘free Agents’ 23

Chapter Four: ‘This unceasing record’: Agents and the communication revolution 32

Chapter Five: ‘Capable at a moment when most people had lost their heads’: 38The First World War and the gathering storm

Chapter Six: ‘Some got away…of others there is no news’: The Second World War 50

Chapter Seven: ‘He remains resilient and optimistic’: Agents and the post-war world 56

Chapter Eight: ‘Something that mystified outsiders’: The Agency system under scrutiny 64

Chapter Nine: Things move rapidly: The Agency network today 72

Bibliography 78

Controllers of Agencies 79

Current Lloyd’s Agents that have provided over 100 years of service 80

Contents


Acknowledgements

Research by David Burrell, for many years assistant to the Controller of Agencies, was the starting point for much of the material in thispublication and to David I owe great gratitude for this work and his encouragement.

Past and present members of the Lloyd’s Agency Department have been very supportive, in particular Controllers of Agencies, MikeStott, Sonja Fink and Karen Bizon, former Inspector of Agencies Andrew Cross and former Marketing Manager Bob O’Leary. TheAgency Department staff have been very kind in welcoming me and helping with inquiries.

Paul Dalton and his wife Penny are responsible for many of the photographs in this book, many of which would have been lost but fortheir care. Lloyd’s Plate Butler, Alan Brown, and Heather Howard-Williams, Information Officer in Legal & Compliance, helped trackdown valuable material. Tony Pawlyn, author of the Falmouth Packets 1689-1851, helped a great deal on Falmouth.

It has been a pleasure meeting Agents, and among those who have taken the greatest interest in this project are Andrew Cooper, BuenosAires; Peter Engel and the Hudig family, Rotterdam, and Lloyd’s General Representative in the Netherlands, Alexis Fontein; the latePeter Hamilton of Tenerife; former Agent Harald Lunøy of Christiansand; and Jaime MacPherson, Cadiz.

Lee Coppack

Acknowledgements


Foreword – Dr Richard Ward

Throughout time, every country, every community, every business and every home has needed insurance in one form or another. Societycould not function as it does without it. With each new direction taken by trade and industry insurance has adapted to deliver newprotections and provide a safe springboard for future development.

Despite its value, the nature of insurance has also often been misunderstood. Insurance has always been based on analysis, research andthe scientific study of risk. In other words, on information.

By 1811, the complexity of the information used by the insurance industry had evolved significantly, but it was the creation of a networkof Agents by Lloyd’s that year which profoundly accelerated both the reach and impact of that information.

For the first time, a global network of individuals could act as the eyes and ears of the market, finding out the truth, detecting problemsand suggesting solutions. The flow of information they sent back to Lloyd’s was a vital component of the consolidation and growth ofboth Lloyd’s reputation and the added value and expertise it could offer its customers. In times of war and conflict the value of thisinformation went far beyond policyholders, the Royal Navy and Admiralty both relied heavily on its accuracy.

As this book shows, Agents tended to be quite exceptional people. Courageous, curious and often eccentric, their commitment to the rolehas shaped the culture of Lloyd’s. And perhaps in no area have they made their mark as strongly as in their contribution to ensuringLloyd’s has always paid all valid claims.

We did this when the San Francisco earthquake struck in 1906, when the Titanic sunk in 1912 and when the World Trade Center fell in2001. Since then we have helped America, Chile, Australia, New Zealand and Japan rebuild their communities and businesses.

Throughout this time, our Agents have directly helped to give Lloyd’s the global presence and brand that it enjoys today.

Over the last 200 years, the Lloyd’s community has had a great deal to thank its network of Agents for. I congratulate them on thisimportant anniversary.

Dr Richard Ward,Chief Executive Officer,Lloyd’s

Foreword


Three miles east of Deal, Kent, in the choppy,cold waters of the English Channel, lie theGoodwin Sands. It’s an innocuous name for alethal feature: more than 2,000 ships have mettheir ends upon these sandbanks. The‘Treacherous Goodwins’ are a constant menaceto shipping, ever-changing with the tide. Evenfestooned with buoys and illuminated bylighthouses, they are never quite what theyseem. Stand on the shore today and you canstill see the wrecks of two American cargovessels, the North Eastern Victory and theLuray Victory. They fetched up on the Sandsin 1946 and have remained there ever since.

The boatmen of Deal knew the dangerouswaters of the Sands well. They performedextraordinary feats of bravery in rescuingstranded seamen and passengers from wrecks– and still do to this day. The writer CharlesDickens later described them as ‘among thebravest and most skilful mariners that exist.’But in the early 19th century they were alsonotorious for their tendency to plunder thosesame wrecks. Ship owners and underwritersconstantly complained of extortionate chargesfor salvage and other services.

In 1805, the Committee of Lloyd’s appointedthe firm of Goodwin, Curling & Co.,

consisting of Medmer Goodwin, EdwardGoodwin, John Friend and George Joad, toact as agents on that part of the coastline. Itwas clearly a successful appointment. In thefirst five months of their employment,Goodwin, Curling & Co saved ship ownersand underwriters some £2,000 in 32 losses oraccidents. Although at the time, Lloyd’s didnot consider it so, this was the beginning ofa system which would spread out over theglobe, encompassing every continent, andwhich is still thriving today.

The coffee house on Tower Street

Lloyd’s had itself begun in a narrow street –Tower Street, London, where EdwardLloyd had his coffee shop in 1688. Lloyddied in 1713 but by then the coffee housewhich bore his name was the best knownplace in the City of London for merchants,brokers and underwriters to meet and dobusiness.

The coffee house had no entry requirementsor restrictions. Debate was robust in thecrowded and smoky atmosphere, amongcrowds of maritime folk eager for the latestnews and developments, and at times it wasmore like a gaming house.

Chapter One

‘A regular and universal system’: The first Agents

The Intrinsic, [under Captain]Phillips, from London to Granada,drove on shore on Wednesday evening,near Deal, but was got off withoutmuch damage

Lloyd’s List, 30 November 1810


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Early map of Kent coastline from Sandwich to Winchelsea


Royal Exchange, Lloyd’s Coffee House 1798

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Joseph Addison, founder of The Spectator, adaily paper that flourished in the early 18thcentury, recalled accidentally dropping hisnotes for the next edition at Lloyd’s:

About a Week since there happened tome a very odd Accident, by Reason ofone of these my Papers of Minuteswhich I had accidentally dropped atLloyd’s Coffee-house, where theAuctions are usually kept. Before Imissed it, there were a Cluster of Peoplewho had found it, and were divertingthemselves with it at one End of theCoffee-house: It had raised so muchLaughter among them before I hadobserved what they were about, that Ihad not the Courage to own it. The Boyof the Coffee-house, when they haddone with it, carried it about in hisHand, asking every Body if they haddropped a written Paper; but no Bodychallenging it, he was ordered by thosemerry Gentlemen who had beforeperused it, to get up into the AuctionPulpit, and read it to the whole Room,that if any one would own it they might.

The reading, according to Addison’s ruefulpostscript, ‘made the whole Coffee-housevery merry; some of them concluded it waswritten by a Madman.’

When the Deal appointment was made,Lloyd’s had long expanded far beyond thewalls of the coffee-house. By 1773, thebusiness of Lloyd’s could no longer beconducted in a coffee-house. The man whobecame known as the Father of Lloyd’s, JohnJulius Angerstein, led the underwriters tofind a new home in the Royal Exchange bythe Bank of England, where they remaineduntil 1928, with an interruption forrebuilding after a devastating fire in 1838.

A major factor in the growth of the marketwas the continuing conflict at sea. Between1700 and 1820, Great Britain was at war for58 years. France and her allies were the mostfrequent adversaries, although there wereother conflicts, including the rebellion by theAmerican colonists. Not only were theremerchant ships to insure but even greater Royal Exchange, Lloyd’s Coffee House 1798

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sums on English men of war that carried richprizes and bullion raided from other countries’ships. Lloyd’s underwriters covered Britishships against capture by the French and Frenchshipping against capture by the British.

‘Wrecked, stranded or cast away’

But the Deal appointment, effective though itwas, did not spark off an instant clamour foran agency system. In fact, Lloyd’s consideredDeal a special case, and the Committee hadalready turned down offers of agency servicesin other ports on the basis that it had nopower to appoint agents to act forunderwriters. As late as 6 March 1811, theCommittee read a letter from JohnMacPherson Brackenbury of Liverpool, whichhe accompanied with a plan for providingprompt assistance to vessels in distress in thePort of Liverpool and requested anappointment as agent. The Committeethanked Brackenbury: ‘informing him thatthey approve of his plan but do not thinkthemselves authorized to appoint any agents.’

Individual underwriters did grant power ofattorney to local agents to protect theirinterests in ships and cargo. We know little ofthe number and extent of such arrangements.However, it was clearly a cumbersome process,as a letter of attorney dated 6 October 1791 inthe archives of the Bahamas GovernmentRegistry shows. The letter, from some 119merchants and Lloyd’s underwriters,authorised John Falconer, Archibald Campbelland Alexander Begbie to take charge andsecure ships and their cargoes, equipment andproperty that were insured at Lloyd’s, or inwhich any of the owners had an interest, thathad been ‘wrecked, stranded or cast away’ onany part of the Bahamas Islands or the FloridaKeys. All 119 had to sign and seal thedocument before a notary.

Something clearly had to change. In 1811,Lloyd’s was going through a period ofupheaval – not for the last time – and themarket was developing more formalstructures to manage its growing size andcompetitive pressures. In 1771, there hadbeen only 79 subscribers. By 1809, there werebetween 1,400 and 1,500, about two-thirdsof whom were described as underwriters.

Then there was the threat of competition. Atthis time, Lloyd’s enjoyed close to completedominance of marine insurance. Since 1720,a statutory monopoly had restricted marineunderwriting in Great Britain to individualsand two chartered insurance companies, theRoyal Exchange Assurance and the LondonAssurance. But at the start of the 19thcentury the companies had largely left themarine market to individual underwriters,and Lloyd’s was the centre of this business.When in 1810 a group of London merchantsproposed floating a new £5 million insurancecompany – the ‘New Marine InsuranceCompany – and petitioned Parliament torepeal the monopoly, Lloyd’s was clearly their target.

On this occasion Lloyd’s won, although themonopoly was finally broken in 1824. In hisspeech to Parliament’s inquiry into thestatutory monopoly, Joseph Marryat MP,shortly to become chairman of Lloyd’s spokepassionately of the ‘system of commercialintelligence…established there by the labourof half a century and has, at length, beenbrought to a degree of perfection whichrenders it of the utmost importance to themercantile world.’ It became more importantthan ever for Lloyd’s to stay ahead in theintelligence game.

Unfortunately, the process of fighting themonopoly repeal had shown that Lloyd’s was

not being governed effectively. Roles wereconfused, rules were unclear, and the powersof the various committees and functionarieswere vague. The market would need a moresophisticated form of governance in thefuture if it was to capitalise on itsadvantages. In March 1811, Marryat wasappointed chair of a committee of inquirydesigned to investigate ‘such measures asmay be necessary for the future goodmanagement of affairs of this house.’ Thecommittee’s remit was challenging:

Before your committee could decidewhat rules and regulations it might beexpedient to prepare for the futuremanagement of the affairs, of Lloyd’s, itwas necessary to inquire what rules andregulations actually existed, and thus toascertain how far they were called uponto revive and enforce the standing orderof the house.

This investigation revealed ‘how little hadhitherto been done as to the establishmentof any regular system for the management ofthe affairs of Lloyd’s.’

The committee of inquiry concluded, amongmany other measures, ‘that it is highlyimportant to the interests of theUnderwriters, that a regular and universalsystem of intelligence and superintendenceshould be established in all the principalPorts and Places both at home and abroad;and that this object will be bestaccomplished through the medium ofAgents to be appointed by this Committee.’

‘In any port or place they might thinkproper’

On 15 August 1811, the Committee decidedthat there should be a trust deed, signed by

Chapter One


all subscribers, to bind the subscribers toobey the rules and regulations of theSociety of Lloyd’s. The new byelaws nowhad legal authority. They underpinned thegovernance of Lloyd’s for the next 60 yearsuntil the Lloyd’s Act 1871. Lloyd’s wasnow under the governance of the newCommittee of 12 members.

The new Committee would ‘beempowered to appoint Agents, to act forthe benefit of the Underwriters, whereverthey may think proper; and that no powersof Attorney be in future granted byindividual Underwriters.’ However, theAgents would not receive a salary forsupplying information. The Committeefelt that it was unnecessary, as theappointment would generate new businessfor Agents, on which they could chargethe usual commission.

Marryat was elected the chairman of thenew Committee. The first Secretary, a postcarrying the annual salary of £200 perannum, was John Bennett Jnr, who was tobecome instrumental in the establishmentof the Agency network. One of the firstacts of the new Committee was to put upa notice asking for the names of men whoalready held power of attorney fromunderwriters so they could be consideredas candidates for the new Agents’ posts.

The Committee named 140 places, 59 ofthem in Great Britain, where it wantedAgents, and instructed Bennett to makeout a list of the ports and the names wherethere was already a correspondent. On 13November 1811, it formally approved theappointment of the first 20 Agents.Goodwin, Curling, Friend and Joad werenamed Agents for the three Channel portsof Deal, Dover and Ramsgate.

John Bennett Junior, Secretary of Lloyd’s 1804-1834

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need to follow the new rules and regulations.‘From the numerous applications which havebeen made, by persons of the firstrespectability, for these appointments,’ statedthe letter ‘the Committee are led to believethat they are considered as highly desirableand honourable.’

The letter went on to explain that havingtaken legal advice, the Committee would notgrant regular powers of attorney since theunderwriters were not a corporate body.However, it said, that the weight of theCommittee’s authority and that of Lloyd’s newdeed of trust would ‘give the same weight’ to

By the end of 1811, the appointments athome and abroad were nearly complete andconfirmation had been sent to the newAgents, including former mariner WilliamBroad. In 1808 he had been in command ofthe Phoenix and received a commendation forservices to a convoy sailing to the LeewardIslands which was brought to the attention ofthe Committee of Lloyd’s. By December1809, he had come ashore and set up inbusiness in Falmouth as shipping agent.

Along with all the other new Agents, Broadwould have received his letter of instructionsetting out his duties and emphasising the

The original Appointment Letter for Falmouth dated13 November 1811

Chapter One


Agents’ actions on behalf of underwriters as aformal legal instrument.

Agents would be able to assist masters whoneeded advice or assistance when neither theshipowner nor his agent was on the spot andthe insurance might be affected. In thesecases, stated the Committee, masters would‘hardly hesitate’ to put themselves into thehands of the Agents. It went without sayingthat getting in touch with the owner couldtake far too long in this pre-telegraph period.

Timely information was as essential tounderwriting in the 19th century as it is now,and Broad would have read that his first dutyas an Agent was to provide shippingintelligence to the market. He would furnish‘prompt and regular advices of the arrival andsailing of vessels, of their being incircumstances of danger and distress, of theappearance of the enemy’s cruisers orprivateers, and such other information as maybe important to the interests of theUnderwriters.’

He would offer his services to the masters ofships in distress or driven onto the shore neartheir home port. If the ship needed anchors or

cables, the Agent was to supply them ‘of thebest materials’ and ensure that adistinguishing mark and number werestamped under the stock of the anchors, ‘inorder that they could be recognised andclaimed on any future occasion.’

It would be his job to check the statementsof a ship’s master, to see that they were ‘inthe right form’ and contained all the correctfacts. To help prevent plunder, he would bein charge of the ship’s material, stores andany cargo that could be saved. Wheresalvors claimed remuneration for assistanceto vessels in distress, Board was to attendthe meetings of those legally authorised todetermine the amount, to contradict anyexaggerated statements, and ‘see that thelaw for the regulation of such claims wasobserved.’

When damaged goods had to be sold, theAgent was to ensure that no sound cargowas included. When vessels were repaired,they were to ensure that the claim onunderwriters included only damage incurredin that voyage and not from previousvoyages or defects of age. The Agents wereto take care that surveyors appointed were

Chapter One

‘intelligent and professional’ men. Of course,the appointment of respectable surveyorswould also help prevent fraud, when attemptswere made to condemn ships and cargoesbecause it was to the advantage of the partiesto abandon them.

As Agent, Broad was instructed to dealdirectly with the owner of the ship or cargo –including claiming his expenses and payment– and to let the owners know what actions hehad taken, only communicating matters ofmore general interest to Lloyd’s.

The posts were hotly contested. In fact, theCommittee reported that in many cases therehad been so many applications for theappointments, from such good qualitybusinesses, that they had great difficultydeciding among them. Consequently, someposts were left open until the Committeecould get more information about thecharacter and qualifications of the menapplying. The extensive correspondence aboutthe appointments, however, had already beenuseful to the underwriters and the Committeeadvised subscribers that it believed that ‘everyexpectation formed of the advantages of thissystem will be realised.’


Agents abroad

From 1812, the annual list of subscribers toLloyd’s also included a list of Agents andinstructions to them: 67 agencies around thecoast of Britain and Ireland and 34 abroad.

There were Agents in the West Indies, theeast coast of the United States, Brazil, theBaltic coast, the Mediterranean, Spain andPortugal, Turkey, the Canary Islands, the Capeof Good Hope, three in India and one inChina. However, there were none in France,Germany, or the Netherlands, because of thecontinuing conflict, nor in Japan which was toremain closed to foreign trade for more than40 years.

An Agent’s bright idea

In 1811, there was only one simple signal for distress at sea. Soon after hisappointment as Lloyd’s Agent in Liverpool, John MacPherson Brackenbury putforward a suggestion for a set of signals that would allow masters whose ships werein danger to convey better what help they needed, whether men or equipment, toavoid delay in urgent cases.

The value of his idea was so obvious that the Committee of Lloyd’s consulted theElder Brethren of Trinity House, the body responsible for aids to navigation. TrinityHouse added some improvements and the results were submitted to the Lords ofAdmiralty who approved it. At the Committee’s request, the Lords of Admiraltydirected signal officers to use their signals for the information of Lloyd’s Agents.Lloyd’s also arranged for separate lists of the Agents and signals to be printed formasters of merchant vessels for distribution at Lloyd’s and different UK seaports.

Five years later, the Shipowners’ Society of London adopted a more general code ofsignals for use by merchant ships, invented by Captain Frederick Marryatt, a famousnovelist of life at sea who also happened to be the son of the Chairman of Lloyd’s,Sir Joseph Marryatt. The Committee distributed Marryatt’s Code of Signals for theUse of Vessels Employed in the Merchant Service to Agents, although it refused requestsfor sets of signal flags. The Marryatt code remained in use until the InternationalCode of Signals was adopted in 1857.

The role of Agents abroad differed slightlyfrom that of the UK Agents. The‘enumeration of duties’ which would havebeen received by Joshua Kentish, the firstAgent in Antigua, included ‘cases of captureand recapture, condemnation of ships andcargoes, repairs of vessels and goods damagedby salt water’. These were all circumstances inwhich fraud was rife, whether it was ‘the toocommon practice of selling an entire packageof goods because a few pieces in it have beeninjured’ or ships and cargoes being condemned‘not so much from real necessity, as because itis in the interest of the parties to abandonand throw the loss upon the underwriter.’But despite the rules and regulations,Agents were also given a great deal of

Sir John MacPherson Brackenbury by Charles Baugniet, 1847 © National PortraitGallery, London

Chapter One


latitude to deal with situations as theysaw fit.

Various circumstances may arise for whichno instructions can provide, and in whichthe committee rely on the exercise of yourjudgement and discretion. They have onlyto observe that underwriters require suchpremiums as experience has taught themto calculate will indemnify them for therisks they take; and that, as they areobliged to make the good pay for the bad,it is the interest of every honest merchantto protect them against imposition.

‘Much valuable intelligence’

Agents began to show their worthimmediately. The Committee reported that assoon as Agents had been appointed and actedunder these instructions, ‘much valuableintelligence has been communicated and manyattempts at imposition upon the underwritershave been checked by them.’

On 4 December 1811, the Committee read aletter from John Brackenbury, the Agent inLiverpool, proposing to instigate a prosecutionagainst the men involved in pillaging the shipChesterfield and her cargo which had beenlost while on a voyage from Jamaica toLiverpool. The Committee encouraged him todo so, and agreed to defray Lloyd’s part of theexpenses which the shipowner would incur inbringing the offenders to justice, in theexpectation that it would deter others.

Certificate of Appointment for the Island of Antiguadated 11 December 1811

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Printed with the list of Agents and also placedin the rooms at Lloyd’s was a notice statingthat it was ‘much desired’ for masters of shipsarriving in any port to report to the Agent anaccount from their log books of all othervessels they had seen or spoken with or anyother incidents that occurred during theirvoyage. ‘By this means, intelligence mightfrequently be communicated to theCommittee, valuable to the subscribers toLloyd’s, gratifying to individuals andimportant to the public.’

This intelligence was a valuable commodityfor trading as well as for immediate action.Thanks to the information that Lloyd’s wasable to provide to the Admiralty, it receiveduseful information back in exchange, andstrengthened the hand of the market innegotiating with the Admiralty.

The timing of the appointments wasimpeccable. The Agents’ intelligence was toprove invaluable. Over the next decade warmade the Atlantic a battlefield, and the peacethat followed saw an explosion in trade.

Extract of reporting instructions for Lloyd ’sAgents (1812)

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Chapter Two

In the autumn of 1813, the American CaptainThomas Boyle of the Chasseur was cruising inthe English Channel. The war between theUnited Kingdom and the United States was atits height, and Boyle was known for his daringand sheer courage. A scourge of Britishmerchant ships, his most recent voyage hadcaptured 18 ships carrying thousands ofdollars’ worth of cargo. ‘He appearedfrequently to tantalise and vex [the British] asif for sheer sport,’ a friend said of him, ‘and atthat same time convince them that he couldout-manoeuvre and outsail them in any trial ofseamanship.’

Now, Captain Boyle announced his intentionto impose ‘a strict and rigorous blockade’ of ‘allthe ports, harbors, bays, creeks, rivers, inlets,outlets, islands, and seacoast of the UnitedKingdom of Great Britain and Ireland’. Hesent this message to London with instructionsthat it should be posted on the door ofLloyd’s.

Boyle’s joke blockade was a deliberate attemptto show up the absurdity of similar ‘paperblockades’ of American coastlines issued byBritish admirals after war between Britain andthe United States had been declared a yearearlier. But his audacious action also

demonstrated how well-known the Lloyd’sname had become, and how it had become thefirst point of contact for shipping news – astatus greatly reinforced by the Agents, whonow provided intelligence worldwide.

The Agents attempted to keep underwritersinformed of the frequently changing captureand recapture of vessels between warringEuropean countries and between the UnitedKingdom and her former colony. For example,HMS St Lawrence was formerly Atlas, anAmerican privateer, before the Britishcaptured and renamed her in 1813. Two yearslater she was recaptured by Captain Boyle inthe Chasseur, only to be taken back by HMSAcasta a month later.

Underwriters were suffering because the ViceAdmiralty courts were ordering the sale ofboth ship and cargo to pay salvage. TheCommittee protested and succeeded in gettinginstructions approved by the Privy Council toget the practice stopped. The instructionsclearly also went to the Agents, who weregenerally successful in enforcing them, theCommittee reported on 22 Sept 1813.

In one case, however, the Agent was censured‘in the strongest terms’ for ordering the cargo

The end of war and the challenges of peace

The Young True Blood YankeePrivateer with Swivels and SmallArms and 32 Men, was taken 24thinst. by the Hope SW and is arrivedat Penzance.

Lloyd’s List, 29 June 1813


Chapter Two

of the Speculator – ‘condemned asunseaworthy’, according to Lloyd’s List ofTuesday 29 June 1813 – for sale forunderwriters’ interests, rather than its onwardshipment. However, instances of valuableservice were far more common. Lloyd’s Listreported that the Diana, going from theBrazils to London, was captured, recapturedand carried into Grenada. There, Agents gavesecurity for the salvage, supplied her with thestores of which she had been plundered, filledup part of the cargo which had been thrownoverboard by the enemy and dispatched herfor London with the next convoy.

Peacetime

The years of warfare at sea were nearly at anend, however. On Christmas Eve, 1814, theTreaty of Ghent was signed and the war withAmerica was over. The end of the conflictbrought about an immediate resumption oftrade between America and Britain, with ahuge increase in activity to make up for thesuspension.

In Europe, the long conflict with Napoleonreached its climax on 18 June 1815, whenBritish troops under the Duke of Wellingtonand their allies defeated the French. The warwas not quite over, but on 15 July Napoleonsurrendered to Capt Frederick Maitland ofHMS Bellerophon.

Britain was then at peace with the UnitedStates and France and her allies. BySeptember 1815, the number of reports inLloyd’s List of ships taken by privateers hadfallen significantly. Underwriting no longeroffered such rich rewards, and the averagenumber of new subscribers and substitutesfell to 60 or 70 a year when in the periodfrom May 1812 to March 1813, there hadbeen 210.

The work of the Agents must have changed asthe reporting of captures and seizures dropped,but commerce increased. However, the need fornaval protection had not vanished with thereturn of peace. The merchant ships of theperiod were still usually under 200 tons and, inbad weather, losses could be high. Lloyd’s List of15 October 1815 described the fate of a convoyof 89 ships sailing to Britain from Jamaica withthe fleet under convoy of HMS Warrior. As theresult of a storm, only 62 arrived. Eleven hadput into Halifax in distress, eight wereabandoned – two of which were eventuallycarried into port – and eight were missing.

With the increase in trade and appreciation ofthe benefits of the agency system, the numberof appointments of Agents rose rapidly. In1816, the network outlined the British Isles andextended to Russia, the Baltics, Scandinavia,the Netherlands, Germany, France, Spain,Portugal, Gibraltar, Italy, Greece, Turkey, theCanary Islands, Canada, the United States,West Indies, Latin America and India. By1820, there were Agents in over 100 UK portsand more than 150 abroad.

No appointments had been made in theNetherlands in the early years because, as aresult of its annexation into France underNapoleon, the Kingdom of Holland wasconsidered enemy territory. However, afterNapoleon’s defeat in 1815, Lloyd’s swiftlyappointed Agents in four ports, includingAmsterdam and Rotterdam.

The first Rotterdam Agent was John F.Harrison, but he was soon approached by JanHudig – or John, as he was known in English –with a view to taking over the Agency. It wasthe beginning of an association which stillendures. Established in 1795, Hudig’s shippingfirm Hudig & Blokhuijzen had become one ofthe foremost shipping agents in Rotterdam.

Help for a hero’s mistress

After Admiral Nelson met his deathat the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805, hismistress Emma Hamilton fled toFrance with her daughter Horatia, toescape her creditors. Emma wasdrinking heavily and no longer thebeauty who had captured Nelson,according to her biographer FloraFraser in Beloved Emma, published in1986. Henry Cadogan, British Consuland Lloyd’s Agent in Calais, took pityon her. He settled some of her debtsand was reported to have advancedthe money for her funeral in 1815. Hetook Horatia back to Englandafterwards, and his wife apparentlyeven redeemed some of Emma’spossessions from the pawnbroker andsent them and some letters toHoratia.

Top right: Centenary Plaque presented to John Hudig & Son to mark their appointment as Lloyd ’s Agent forRotterdam 1818-1918

Right: Jan Hudig (left), who succeeded his grandfatheras Lloyd’s Agent at the age of 20, was appointedAlderman for Public Works for the City of Rotterdam in1899 and was jointly responsible for many of the largerexpansion plans of the city and the portImage provided by Municipal Archives of Rotterdam


Chapter Two

The family had long been involved in Anglo-Dutch trade and shipping. Hudig was wellversed in shipping matters.

John Hudig & Sons acted on behalf ofHarrison from 1817 onwards, but from 1818Hudig is shown as the Rotterdam Agent. JohnHudig, however, carried on a longcorrespondence with Frederick W. Harrison,presumably a close relative of John Harrison,

perhaps his brother, and sent him money ‘onaccount of the Agency’.

Hudig remained the Agent until his death in1858 at the age of 88, when his grandson, alsoJohn Hudig, became Agent and served until1920. The appointment continued in the firm ofJohn Hudig & Son and its successors until 1968– 150 years later. The company then becamepart of Interlloyd, which holds the agency today.


Chapter Two

Agents and the fight against fraud

Underwriters’ fight against fraud is a recurring themethrough the history of Lloyd’s. English statutes only tooknotice of insurance fraud at the beginning of the 18thcentury when the London mercantile community finallypushed Parliament to enact legislation. However, the law didnot initially help underwriters a great deal because it dealtwith barratry – the deliberate destruction of a ship or cargoby the captain, officers or crew – which was an insured peril.It did not cover fraud by the owner against the insurers.

Joseph Marryat had described to the House of CommonsSelect Committee in 1810 how Lloyd’s underwriters hadsuffered from fraud: ‘They have paid not only for vesselspurposely lost, but on cargoes of stones and brick bats,picked up as bale goods; nay, even for vessels which it hasafterwards appeared never were in existence, through forgedinvoices, bills of lading, certificates of their having sailed andevery requisite document, were regularly transmitted; and inorder to prevent suspicion, one of the most respectablehouses in the city was made the innocent instrument of thisnefarious transaction.’

The Committee later stated that the longer the experienceof the agency system, the more it saw the advantages, ‘notonly with respect to intelligence and the detection ofparticular frauds but as establishing a generalsuperintendence which operates though silently mostpurposefully in preventing frauds and improper chargesupon the underwriters from being attempted.’

The underwriters also had reason to thank the Agents forhelping to institute a policy of separating damaged andsound goods and selling only the damaged ones. By 1817,this principle was widely in practice, despite what wasdescribed as ‘violent opposition’ to it at the beginning.Agents reported that it was by then uniformly acted upon inthe ports of New Orleans, Baltimore, Philadelphia andBoston and generally at Leghorn, Genoa, Trieste andGibraltar, Hamburg and Holland.

Joseph Marryat, Chairman of Lloyd’s 1811-1824


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Gompertz’s rejection and the end of themonopoly

Lloyd’s succeeded in defending its monopolyin marine insurance in 1810, but a freshchallenge was to come. Early in 1824,legendary financier Nathan Rothschild wasleaning up against his favourite pillar in theRoyal Exchange when he was accosted by hiscousin, Benjamin Gompertz. Gompertz was adistinguished mathematician – he soonpublished Gompertz’s Law of Mortality usedto calculate average life expectancies. Heinformed Rothschild that he had just beenturned down for an actuarial position with alarge insurance company because he wasJewish. Rothschild was furious and tookdecisive action. Within a few months, he hadformed the Alliance British and Foreign Fireand Life Assurance Company, appointedGompertz as actuary, and asked for a repeal ofthe Act which prevented his company fromproviding marine insurance.

Again, Lloyd’s fought hard to protect itsposition, but government thinking hadchanged. The bill that broke the marineinsurance monopoly received Royal Assent on24 June 1824. Now, Lloyd’s looked like facing

serious competition. Over the next two tothree years, a number of new companies sprangup to take advantage of the liberalisation.

The Lloyd’s Agency network looked like ripefruit for the new companies, who approachedestablished Agents with a view to their actingfor them, too.

Although in 1815, Liverpool underwriters hadstarted an agency system of their own andmade a point of appointing men who werealready acting as Lloyd’s Agents, Lloyd’s hadnot seen the Liverpool underwriters as athreat. It was different with the newcompanies. Agents asked the Committeewhether they could accept the newappointments and continue to act for Lloyd’sunderwriters. No, they could not, was clearlythe Committee’s view.

The Committee ruled that the Agents shouldbe restricted from accepting appointments asagent to any chartered or joint stock marineinsurance company, although they were toldnot to discriminate in case of shipwreck ordistress. A circular to this effect was sent to theAgents, in July 1825. Lloyd’s also refused toprovide the new Alliance and Indemnity

Companies with shipping intelligence in theway it did for the Royal Exchange andLondon Assurance.

Lloyd’s was prepared to enforce its policy. TheCommittee learned that the St PatrickInsurance Company from Dublin had alsoestablished an office in London to writemarine business, and enlisted the firm ofGarbutt & Dresser in the north east Englandport of Hull to become their agents. RobertGarbutt was one of the first appointments andhad not long before been entrusted withsetting up Agencies along the coast ofLincolnshire and East Yorkshire.

He told the Committee that the appointmenthad nothing to do with him. He had beenaway travelling when the St Patrick hadoffered the agency to his partner Dresser, andhe didn’t feel able to deprive Dresser of theappointment. But the Committee stood firmand rescinded Garbutt’s Agency appointment.

With the expansion of trade which followedpeace with the United States and France,about three-quarters of the Committee’s timewas devoted to building and maintaining theagency network, advising Agents on their


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duties and settling disputes. In 1817, theCommittee modified the originalinstructions to Agents in the light ofexperience with advice from lawyers andsome experienced subscribers in the market.‘They are so framed as to make it almostimpossible, if duly attended to, for theAgents either to mistake their duties orexceed their powers; and if in any case, theyshould so do, the underwriters will not belegally bound by their acts,’ the Committeecommented.

Soon Lloyd’s realised it would be desirable to provide Agents with more specificinstructions. A printed certificate from 1820contained standing instructions under thefollowing headings:

IntelligenceShips driven on shore or in distressRepairs of vesselsSalvage for recaptureAbandonmentSea damage on goodsDocumentsRemuneration for services

Regular reports from the Agents to Lloyd’sprovide a fascinating insight into the workinglives of the Agents worldwide and theirprotection of underwriters’ interests.

Da Costa’s rice and cassava: everyday life asan Agent

It is spring, 1823, and L. da Costa Dourado,the Agent at Ceara, Brazil, reports that theBella Astred had put into port with 500 bagsof rice and 100 baskets of cassava destinedfor Bahia. The government of the provincehas ordered troops on board to takepossession of the ship with the intention ofmaking a prize of her.

Dourado writes indignantly that if necessaryhe would protest to the government, for:‘We have no information here of the court ofRio Janeiro having declared war againstPortugal, nor the court of Portugal against theBrazils, and of course she ought not to becondemned. Of the result of this affair, I shallinform the British minister at Rio Janeiro andwill also write to you that the [Lloyd’s]committee may see I have not been unmindfulof my duty.’

Agents keep tabs on officials andorganisations. A few months later, in July,William Broad & Sons complains thatFalmouth pilots are refusing to supplyinformation about the ships that they hadboarded. The Committee wrote to TrinityHouse, which controlled the pilots. Just a fewmonths later, James Harris, the Agent atBeaumaris on the Isle of Anglesey, has asimilar complaint about customs officers andasked the Committee to intervene.

Agents provide useful information about thecustom and practice of insurance marketsabroad. In February 1824, Gaeto Drago &Walsh, the Agent at Genoa, informs themarket that many of the new proceduresissued by the local government relating toallowances on sea damaged goods sold atpublic auction are so hard to comply with, thatthey have asked the British legation at Turinto try to get some remission or mitigation ofthe most difficult provisions.

Agents work for improvement to maritimesafety. Mr Whealey, the Agent at Mundesley,Norfolk, writes to say that he has drawn £50and voted for the establishment of a lifeboatthere. He has also strongly recommended theestablishment of lifeboats along the coast atBlakeney and Winterton. (Meanwhile, theAgent at Kinsale in Ireland seems to be rather

less of a pillar of the community – he isreported to have been arrested for debt.)

Agents expose dangerous practices. Deans &Co at Batavia writes that the Baroness VanderCapellan has been forced to return withoutcompleting a journey to Antwerp and a surveyhas found that the ship was in a poor statewhen the cargo was loaded. William Longsdon,the Agent at Charleston, North Carolinacommissions a survey by two masters of Britishvessels and two ‘respectable ship carpenters’ ofthe Colombian ship, Rita Lies, which had putinto Charleston in distress. The surveysunanimously declared that the ship had beenunseaworthy when she left Cartagena.

And Agents perform acts of great bravery.Claus Reimer, the Agent in Heligoland, hearsthat a ship has been stranded nearby. He goeson board the ship immediately and does notleave her until she reaches Hamburg and safety.Mr Canning and Elliot and Co, joint Agents atHamburg, write to the Committee: ‘She wasbeset by nearly 300 wreckers and we must injustice to Mr Reimer, repeat that his conducthas been very meritorious and his exertions atthe risk of health and life very great.’ TheCommittee thanks Reimer for his very properaction to protect the interest of theunderwriters. No other reward is mentioned.

The energetic Brackenbury has left Liverpooland reappears in Cadiz, where he becomes theAgent and British Consul in 1822. He writes toLloyd’s in December 1823 to say that if theCommittee wants the Cadiz Agent to be ableto serve them, it must authorise hisintervention in all surveys: ‘For it is as easy amatter in this place to get averages certified bythe authorities as it is for the underwritersthemselves to put their names upon a policy.’Extracts from his letter are posted in thereading room.


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two hours. Police and firemen arrived but hadno keys for the great gates. By the time thegates had been forced, and the hose and worksof the fire engine had been thawed out, theflames had taken hold. By twelve o’clock, thewhole of the long range of offices belonging tothe Royal Exchange Insurance Company,Lloyd’s establishment, including the Captain’s

room, the Coffee room, and the underwriters’offices, were a mass of fire. As The Spectatorof 13 January 1838 reported:

The Bank and the neighbouring churchesand buildings were brilliantly illuminated;and the spectacle, though awful, was ofunequalled grandeur… A strange

Fire, the Falklands and ‘free Agents’

The fire at the Royal Exchange

At half past ten on the bitterly cold evening ofWednesday 10 January 1838, a watchmannoticed flames coming from the corner of theRoyal Exchange occupied by ‘Lloyd’s Coffeeroom’. He gave the alarm but it was too late;the fire had already been burning for at least

The Royal Exchange 1838


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sensation was produced by the chiming ofthe bells during the fire the old andfavourite tunes of ‘There’s nae luck aboutthe house,’ ‘Life let us cherish,’ and thenational anthem of ‘God save the Queen,’etc were heard in their turns amidst theshouts of the firemen and populace andthe crash of falling masses of stone andtimber. The bells, eight in number, fell oneafter another, carrying along with themthe roof, stone-work, and the arch over thecentre entrance, to the pavement.

By the morning, nothing remained but ablackened shell. Many documents relating tothe early years of the Agency system, such aslists of Agents and copies of circulars,probably vanished in the fire.

The Spectator reports that ‘for the present,Lloyd’s is removed to the London Tavern.’With their building in ruins, Committeemembers camped out in the boardroom of theLondon Assurance Corporation while theydeliberated what to do. On 15 January, they

announced that they would move to the greathall of South Sea House, where the marketremained for 82 months. It sounds not to havebeen very comfortable, and during this periodof exile, the membership fell from 1,211subscribers in December 1837 to 945 at theend of 1843.

Lloyd’s in exile

But the Committee wasn’t idle. JamesBischoff, a member of the Committee whohad always taken a special interest in theworking of the Agencies and the intelligencesystem, now instigated the creation of anindex to the Lloyd’s List – the forerunner oftoday’s Confidential Index. It detailed vessels’departures, arrivals, contacts or casualties. Twobig volumes containing this index were laidbefore the Committee on 10 October 1838.They were to be kept in the Reading Roomand posted daily.

The affairs of the Agents, including newappointments, continued to occupy much of

the Committee’s time. In January 1839,Lloyd’s wrote to Agents with instructions tocommunicate, in addition to their usualreports, the names of vessels and mastersarriving at their ports with damaged goods,whether they had been surveyed under theAgent’s directions and if not, why not.Underwriters had frequently received claimsbased on surveys that Agents didn’t knowabout and difficulties and disputes had arisenas a result. A more detailed instructionfollowed in December 1840. Certificates ofsound value were not sufficiently explicit,Lloyd’s said. In future, the Agents would statewhether the sound value was the price for cashor the usual credit and whether it included anydiscounts.

Lloyd’s had been hostile towards therelatively new insurance companies. However,those companies provided practical help andgoodwill following the fire, and in 1840Lloyd’s agreed to provide them with shippingintelligence. That same year, Lloyd’s longstanding arrangement with the Post Office to

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Left: The Royal Exchange on fire 1838


receive shipping lists free of postage cameto an end. Lloyd’s instructed Agents in theUnited Kingdom to pre-pay the postage onshipping lists and not exceed a pre-setweight limit. Agents abroad were told to becareful about their handwriting so as not toincrease the number of pages and thus thepostage costs. This, plus the expense offitting out the new premises and rebuildingthe Royal Exchange, may also have madethe prospect of additional income from thesupply of information welcome.

After the fire, churchman and authorBishop Mant wrote in the SaturdayMagazine of the Exchange’s rebuilding:‘That which is good to be done cannot bedone too soon and if it is neglected to bedone early, it will frequently happen that itwill not be done at all.’ He quoted withapproval a verse which first appeared afterthe Exchange was burned down previously,in the 1666 Great Fire of London:

Th’ Exchange, that Royal Infant,shortly willHer own and forreign language speakwith skillAnd on that acre the noon sun shallseeAll his long travels in epitomie.

Mant got his wish. The Royal Exchangewas rebuilt, complete with new facilitiesincluding, for the first time, lavatories.Queen Victoria opened the new buildingon 28 November 1844. By the end ofDecember, the underwriters were back atthe building enjoying those luxuriouslavatories. Post was still addressed toLloyd’s Coffee House – and continued tobe so until the end of the First World War– but Lloyd’s would now develop into amore structured institution.

The Lutine legend

It was a stormy night in October 1799 when HMS Lutine, a 32gun frigate, foundered in the shallows between Tereschelling andVlieland. Her cargo was said to have consisted of gold bullion,valued then at around £1 million. But the only two survivors of thewreck never reached England, and all the Lloyd’s documentsrelating to her cargo disappeared in the 1838 Royal Exchange fire.

The Lloyd’s Agents in Amsterdam have always been activelyinvolved in attempts to salvage cargo from what is, in insuranceterms, one of the most famous shipwrecks of all time. The Lloyd’sbell, rung in the past to signal the fate of an overdue ship, wassalvaged from the wreck in 1859. As for the gold lost on the shipand insured by Lloyd’s underwriters, that remains somewhere atthe bottom of the North Sea, close to the coast of theNetherlands.

Salvage attempts began almost immediately, but over the yearsstrong currents and shifting sands thwarted many of them. Thepreamble to the Lloyd’s Act 1871 specifically refers to the Lutine.From 1865 the Amsterdam Agents, then operating under thename of Alfred Schröder and since 2000 as Interlloyd Averij,have acted as Lloyd’s eyes and ears during the various salvageattempts. They have been involved in arranging contracts betweenpotential salvors and Lloyd’s, monitoring the salvage operationsand arranging the sale of any artefacts found.

For 20 years, Lloyd’s had an agreement with Dutch marinearchaeologist Ane Duijf and his team. His investigations resultedin a better understanding of the grounding and foundering of theLutine, according to Interlloyd. Many smaller artefacts were foundand an important part of the wreck was traced, but not so far thevaluable cargo.

The agreement concluded at the end of 2010. Peter Engel, generalmanager for Interlloyd in Rotterdam said: ‘I assume that this is theend of the Lutine adventure, as new Dutch legislation makes itvery difficult to obtain permission to do research on archaeologicalsites such as the Lutine. And except for one gold bar in 1938, it ismore than 150 years since cargo has been found.’

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Signing of the ‘Amsterdam Lutine Salvage Agreement’ (circa 1890)


‘Every way a free agent’: The salaried Agentsystem

Deal and Ramsgate were, effectively, thecradle of the agency movement, and it was theChannel boatmen’s mixture of seamanship,heroism and sharp practice which led toanother innovation – the first full-time,salaried Agent. In 1851, an agency sub-committee began to consider a proposal toemploy an Agent for the south coast ofEngland between the North and SouthForeland.

The Agent would carry out surveys, overseeunloading and reloading, personally managewrecked property, give general assistance andadvice to masters of vessels and providecertificates of damage and repairs to the shipsthat got into trouble off the coast.

Relations between Lloyd’s and the insurancecompanies had become more cordial thanks tothe companies’ help following the 1838 RoyalExchange fire, and the minutes of theCommittee of Lloyd’s mentioned that thesubject had been discussed with insurancecompanies in London. They agreed to the ideaunanimously.

George Hammond & Co, the Agent innearby Margate and sub-agent in Ramsgate,could see the advantages of the business. Heoffered to use his own clerks to provide dailyreports of arrivals and departures along theKent coast between Deal and Ramsgate.Hammonds was prepared to do this withoutpayment, it said, provided it could describeitself as the Lloyd’s office from which theAgent would work. It would be worth it toHammonds. The firm would now be in aprivileged position when it came to the supplyof anchors, chains and other materials, and itwould also get commission on repairs.

However, the agency sub-committee decidedthat the salaried Agent really needed to be ‘inevery way a free agent’ and not tied to anyfirm. Instead, it agreed to pay Hammonds tosupply shipping intelligence. GeorgeHammond & Co held various Lloyd’s Agencyappointments starting in 1824, mostprominently at Dover from 1877 first as sub-agent and then as Agent for more than 100years.

So the call went out for the first salariedAgent. The specification was simple: a managed over 30 years, less than 55 years and ofgood character. Peace with America andFrance had meant less active work for theNavy at this period, with many officers havingto put up with reduced pay and no chance ofcapturing rich prizes. Even piracy haddiminished. The opportunity of a civilian postpaying the generous salary of £300 a year musthave been attractive to officers. Lloyd’sreceived 54 applications, of which 21 werefrom Royal Navy officers.

Royal Navy Captain Edward Bunbury Nottpresented an impressive list of testimonialsfrom members of the Admiralty, Coast Guard,Royal Mail steam packets and many others.He was appointed on 19 May 1852 and a clerkand salaried sub-agent followed a little whilelater. The effect of having a dedicated, fulltime Agent with the support of a clerk andsub-agent was so worthwhile in detectingfrauds and preventing improper claims that thesystem was gradually extended, and by 1863,four further special Agencies had followed: oneat nearby Ramsgate, and others at Yarmouth,Lowestoft and Falmouth. The special Agent atFalmouth was, like Captain Nott, a retiredRoyal Navy officer, Henry Eden.

Captain Nott’s time in post was not withoutincident. In November 1860, the owner of the

Simla had given Capt Nott £50 for his servicesto the ship when she was stranded in EastWeir Bay at Folkestone. He asked theCommittee’s permission to keep this money,which was equivalent to nearly 20 percent ofhis annual salary. The Committee told CaptNott that not only was this action in directviolation of his instructions, but also that ithad prejudiced the issues and put theCommittee in an embarrassing position.Despite this rebuke, the Committee said hecould keep the money ‘out of consideration forhis feelings’.

However, the new system was not destined tooperate for long. On July 25 1837, ProfessorCharles Wheatstone sat in a small, dingy,candle-lit room near the booking office atEuston Station and sent a message via the‘telegraph’ to his partner, William FothergillCooke, waiting at Camden Town station. Itwas good news for those who relied on speedyinformation, but it was bad news for thesalaried Agents. In time, Lloyd’s concludedthat thanks to the improved communicationsthe results from the special Agents no longerjustified the expense. The system wasgradually reduced and then abolished in 1869.

The telegraph arrives

As early as 1827, Liverpool underwritersprovided reports to Lloyd’s that had beenreceived ‘by telegraph,’ meaning that theycame via signals passed along a chain ofhilltop signal stations using semaphore. By1840 a telegraph line connected London toDover and another connected Calais to Paris.By 1845, according to the 1942 History ofLloyd’s Intelligence Unit, Lloyd’s arranged withthe South Eastern and South WesternRailway for its Agents at Dover andSouthampton to telegraph reports of casualtiesand the arrival of steam packets via electric

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telegraph from Southampton to London.(Apparently these systems were not used to anygreat extent because the telegraph companiessoon asked for more money ‘and on occasionsLloyd’s Agents forgot to use the telegraph lines.’)

The potential, however, was obvious, and a newarrangement proved more fruitful. Starting inDecember 1847, Lloyd’s agreed with the ElectricTelegraph Company that its representativescould have access to the information in Lloyd’srooms in exchange for free transmission ofinformation from Lloyd’s Agents about casualtiesand the arrival of foreign mail packets, beginningwith Liverpool, Southampton and Hull.

‘The effect was to work a revolution in the quickreporting of casualties and the arrivals of mailsteamers and large vessels,’ wrote R. T.Chamberlain, author of the History. It was stilltaking weeks to get papers and lists from far-flung ports, but casualty reports from UK portsdated 27 November 1845 were published inLloyd’s List the following day – and sometimesthe same day. The first telegraphic instrumentwas installed in the merchants’ room at Lloyd’sin 1851. Two years later, Lloyd’s began askingother Agents to use the telegraph for reportingcasualties and the arrivals of foreign mailsteamers ‘without loss of time’.

The Committee, which was going to be payingfor the service, warned: ‘As the messages arecharged for in proportion to the number ofwords, they should be perfectly intelligible but asshort as circumstances will admit of.’

Agents in India were directed to forwardcasualty intelligence by mail to the Agent inMalta who would telegraph it to Lloyd’s. Newsfrom the Far East and Australia came intoAlexandria and Trieste by ship and wastelegraphed from there to Lloyd’s by mutualarrangement with a London newspaper. A great

An early telegraph machine


extension of these facilities took place at homeand abroad in 1855. By 1857, Lloyd’s was incommunication by telegraph with the majorityof British ports and a large number on theEuropean continent, and a telegraphic wirewas installed in the reading room.

It took another nine years for a successfultrans-Atlantic cable to be laid. The GreatEastern was the only ship in the world thencapable of carrying the weight of the4,345km long cable. On 27 July 1866, thelaying between Valencia, Ireland, and Heart’sContent, Trinity Bay, Newfoundland wascomplete. Soon afterwards, Lloyd’s wrote tothe Agent in New York requesting him totelegraph news of any important casualties.Similar letters to other North AmericanAgents, such as Quebec and Halifax, followed.The Great Northern Telegraph Company’scable landed at Nagasaki in around 1871,finally bringing Japan into telegraphiccommunication with the rest of the world.

A fundamental charter

The middle of the 19th century was a periodof boom and bust in Europe. The CrimeanWar from October 1853 to February 1856 waspart of a long-running contest between themajor European powers for influence over theterritories of the declining Ottoman Empire.Shipbuilding and freight rates soared, thencollapsed at the end of the conflict. Manybanks stopped payment.

Overall, however, there was an immenseexpansion of commerce between 1845 and1870. This led to a rush to form newinsurance companies. Rampant competitionspurred the development of what later came tobe known as ‘innocent capacity’ in marineinsurance. There were many failures inLloyd’s. Lloyd’s grappled with the problem

through a system of guarantees and deposits,but without byelaws which gave it the powerto exclude a member.

As the century matured, there was a growingrealisation that the market needed a strongercentral authority and this opened the way fora more fundamental change. An increasingproportion of Lloyd’s members were now fulltime underwriters, rather than commercialmen – bankers, merchants and traders – whooccasionally accepted risks. The Society ofLloyd’s, which had been a sort of private clubwith a committee of management, nowpetitioned for an Act of Parliament that wouldmake Lloyd’s a legal entity by allowing it toincorporate.

This Act was also intended to bring up to datethe old constitution of the Society of Lloyd’sand remedy its defects. It also specificallyempowered the now incorporated Society ofLloyd’s to use corporate funds and employofficers and agents for any of the followingpurposes:• The investigation of fraud or attempted

fraud with respect to ships, cargoes, freightor their insurances.

• Taking or facilitating proceedings againstthose who carried out such frauds.

• Taking charge of the members’ interest invessels, cargoes and freight.

The Act received Royal Assent on 25 May1871. It remained the fundamental charter ofLloyd’s for more than a century.

Agents abroad

As British trade expanded during the firsthalf of the nineteenth century, so did theLloyd’s agency network. In 1840, there wereAgents in Australia, New Zealand, Singapore,Ceylon (Sri Lanka) and Sierra Leone. By

1850 there were four Agents in Chineseports, including Hong Kong and Shanghai,on the list.

Agents could be found everywhere, even inthe far-flung Falklands. ‘The isolated situationof the island prevented its being visited often,especially by ships homeward-bound;therefore, our stay there might be indefinitelyprotracted’, wrote Mrs D. B. Bates in Incidentson land and water, or Four years on the Pacificcoast in 1857.

There were about 400 inhabitants in thisremote colony, consisting of English,Spanish, and French. The people wereunder the immediate jurisdiction of agovernor, who ruled with despotic power.The governor, clergyman, doctor,governor’s secretary, surveyor-general, andlawyer, are appointed by the Queen, andreceive a salary of £400 per year, with theexception of the governor, who has £800.These, with their families, also the Lloyd’sAgent, and the merchant, constitute thegentry, as they style themselves.

Japan, too, was soon to end its long isolation –though not by choice. The shoguns, itshereditary military rulers, had turned inwardto stave off the influence of Christianmissionaries and European and Russianimperialism. Foreigners were forbidden toland, and there was only a small and restrictedDutch East India Company trading presenceat Nagasaki. Attempts to open trade andpolitical relations largely failed until 1853,when Commodore Matthew Perry sailed withhis United States East India Squadron intothe Bay of Edo, now Tokyo. The followingyear Japan signed a treaty with the UnitedStates, followed soon after by treaties withother Western countries. Yokohama was tobecome a modern port and centre for overseas

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trade. In 1859 it was opened to trade with theUnited States, followed by other countries.

It was fertile ground for young, ambitiousEnglishmen like William Gregson Aspinall,originally from Liverpool. He was working inYokohama as a tea inspector and generalcommission agent in 1860, when he met fellowEnglishman Frederick Cornes, of Macclesfield.Cornes had learned the family silk business athis father’s mill. He was working in Shanghaias a silk buyer when he learned of fresh sourcesof silk becoming available from the newJapanese ports and set sail for Yokohama. Thetwo men formed Aspinall, Cornes & Companyto export silk, green tea, cotton and coal.

The first Lloyd’s Agent in Yokohama,Adamson & Co, had been appointed in 1861.When Adamson resigned in 1868, Aspinall,

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Cornes & Co took their place. After thepartnership was dissolved, Cornes establishedCornes & Company in April 1873. It remainsthe Lloyd’s Agent in Yokohama as part of alarger group.

The 1871 Act stated that the Society of Lloyd’sexisted for three main purposes: the conduct ofmarine insurance, the protection of the interestsof the members and ‘the collection, publicationand diffusion of information with respect toshipping.’ Writing only five years later in TheHistory of Lloyd’s and of Marine Insurance inGreat Britain, Frederick Martin commented:‘Of these three objects, the last, always aleading one, has at present become the mostimportant, forming the basis of all the rest.’

The network of over 1,000 Lloyd’s Agents invirtually every town and port where ships called

was the frontline of this function. From justover 100 Agencies in 1812 and over 250Agencies and five Sub-Agencies in 1820,there were about 600 Agencies and 400 Sub-Agencies by 1880. As communicationsimproved, Lloyd’s preferred to have its Agentsin principal ports control large areas with sub-agencies in the less important places. So thenumber of sub-agents multiplied.

Thanks to improvements in transport andcommunication, Lloyd’s intelligencedepartment had become indispensable notonly to marine insurance but to everybusiness connected with shipping. As Martinwrote: ‘Even if all underwriting was to ceasein the rooms of the corporation, its [theintelligence department’s] continued existencewould be an absolute necessity to thecommercial world.’

Falkland Islands Company Building, 1890


‘Not what they ought to be’: a challenge toLloyd’s

John Towne Danson was a man of manytalents. As a journalist, he worked underCharles Dickens at The Daily News and wasalso a farmer, barrister and marine insuranceunderwriter. It was in this last capacity, assecretary for the Liverpool-based Thames &Mersey Marine Insurance Company, that hepublished an attack on Lloyd’s in a long letterin the Shipping Gazette in 1872, later reprintedas a pamphlet under the title About Lloyd’s.

Danson claimed that Lloyd’s Agents as a bodywere ‘not what they ought to be’. Hecomplained about their method ofappointment and even compared many of theAgents to the ‘wreckers’ of old. He proposedan amalgamation between Lloyd’s and theSalvage Association. This had been created in1856 as a joint venture between Lloyd’s,individual underwriters, leading marineinsurance companies and shipowners, for theprotection of commercial interests in wreckedand damaged property.

Danson argued that the Committee of Lloyd’sshould then hand over control of all Lloyd’sAgencies and shipping intelligence to this new

body. D. E. W. Gibb in his 1957 book Lloyd’sof London: A Study in Individualism was clearabout what he believed was the motivation forthese proposals. Lloyd’s had the enormouslyvaluable asset of the agency network and itsintelligence system, and the insurancecompanies wanted to get control of them.

Altogether the pamphlet was anultimatum, a haughty confidentultimatum, and the author must have beendisappointed when Lloyd’s neitheraccepted his terms nor collapsed accordingto his prediction. Historically the interestin his work lies here – that he and thecompanies whom he championed wantedat all costs to get hold of Lloyd’s Agenciesand Lloyd’s intelligence service. All thebombast and the rhetoric in Danson’stwenty-eight pages boil down to a simplestatement that Lloyd’s had this oneenormously valuable asset, which gave ithigh prestige both in England and abroad;that the companies envied it and wantedit, and were even prepared (for a time atany rate) to share the ownership andcontrol of it with Lloyd’s.

Curiously, the Committee of Lloyd’s initiallyseemed to support the idea. Negotiations

‘This unceasing record’: Agents and the communication revolution

TO OWNERS AND MASTERSOF VESSELSExtracts from the “Instructions toLloyd’s Agents”, printed specially forthe information and guidance of HerMajesty’s Consuls, Commanders ofvessels and other persons interested inshipping, can be obtained, free ofcharge, on application to the Secretaryof Lloyd’s – By order of theCommittee, Henry M. Hozier,Secretary

Lloyd’s List, 1 May 1875

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carried on during 1872 but by the end of theyear, the Committee realised that the newLloyd’s Act, passed only the previous year,made it impossible to create a new bodywithout a further Act. With a slight change oftack, discussions continued nevertheless.

In November 1872, the Salvage Associationproduced its scheme: the creation of a newgeneral committee of Lloyd’s which wouldinclude among its functions the completecontrol of Lloyd’s Agents everywhere and thecollection and distribution of shippingintelligence from all over the world. Theproposed committee was a Lloyd’s committeein name only; Lloyd’s representation wouldhave been in a minority to commercial andinsurance company interests.

After a strong letter from Lloyd’s, the SalvageAssociation dropped the plan. In its place,Lloyd’s agreed to increase the size of theAgency Committee from six to 18 to includesix men nominated by the Salvage Associationand three representatives from the companymarket. Lloyd’s would provide the other ninemembers which, although not a majority, wereprobably sufficient to effect control.

The Committee’s role was advisory, notexecutive. Control of the Agencies remainedfirmly in the hands of the Committee ofLloyd’s, as did the proprietary rights to theintelligence. In 1874, Lloyd’s established adedicated office within the Secretary’s office, tofacilitate communication between underwritersand Lloyd’s Agents. On 17 December 1879, theCommittee decided to increase the membershipof the Agency Committee to 21 with theaddition of three members from the GeneralShipowners’ Society.

What would have happened if Lloyd’s hadaccepted Towne Danson’s proposal? Gibb was

in no doubt: ‘At a stroke it would havethrown away its most valuable possession,would have ceased to be the nerve centre ofthe world’s shipping, would have sacrificedits contacts with the Government, and in theend might have dropped back into theposition of an undistinguished, moribundgathering of marine underwriters.’ As itwas, rapid advances in technology combinedwith the innovations of a new Lloyd’sSecretary, Sir Henry Hozier, meant that theAgency system was about to take anotherleap forward.

Sir Henry’s innovations: the spread of thetelegraph

Sir Henry Hozier was a former RoyalArtillery officer and a man of considerableenergy. He became Secretary in 1874 and tookthe newly-created intelligence departmentunder his control, publishing a voluminousreport giving Agents exact details of how theywere to communicate news.

Agents in the United Kingdom and Irelandshould telegraph all casualties ‘at once’ to

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Col Sir Henry Hozier, Secretary of Lloyd’s 1874-1906


Lloyd’s, as should Agents abroad where thetelegraph was available, excepting small ships.While new cables were being laid, informationshould go surface mail to the closest pointwhich the cable had reached. For example,news from South America should be posted toLisbon, then sent immediately by telegram toLloyd’s.

Frederick Martin gives a vivid picture of thehive of activity that Lloyd’s had become:

‘Telegraphic information arrives in the roomsevery hour and almost every minute conveyingreports of arrivals and sailings of all ships.Beside this unceasing record of the movementof some 60,000 ships that cross the globe, thehost of Lloyd’s Agents and Sub-Agents areenjoined to supply instant communication ofall losses and casualties from every part of theworld, and it often happens that the news of ashipwreck is placarded in the rooms within aquarter of an hour after the event.’

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Lloyd’s Signal Station, Deal


The Committee was not particularly quick torecognise the potential value of telegraphy forsignal stations on the coast. The first signalstation under Lloyd’s control was established in1869. But when, in 1870, a firm in Falmouthoffered to co-operate with Lloyd’s in running asignal station at the Lizard at the tip ofCornwall, the Secretary of the day did not evenacknowledge the proposal. The firm assumedLloyd’s was not interested and went ahead withthe telegraph-equipped signal station as aprivate venture. The next Lloyd’s signal stationwas established at Dover in 1876.

However, by now Sir Henry Hozier hadbecome Secretary to the Committee. When adispute arose in Falmouth between the firm inquestion, Fox & Co, and its rivals, the Lloyd’sAgent William Broad & Co, he went toCornwall to investigate. He reported to theCommittee that Fox & Co had established thestation with the intention of monopolisingshipping intelligence from that point. This wasclearly not good news. So Hozier brought theLizard station under the wing of Lloyd’s andfinally bought it for the sole use of Lloyd’s.

This trip to Cornwall convinced Hozier that anetwork of telegraph-equipped coastal signal

stations – able to immediately contact a localtelegraph office – would be extremelybeneficial. Many private individuals werealready running stations. Hozier beganbringing them over to Lloyd’s and buying landfor new stations. His aim, it appears, was toallow Lloyd’s to control the collection ofshipping news. In 20 years, he acquired signalstations at all the best points in Great Britainand Ireland and a chain of stations abroad –all for Lloyd’s.

By 1884, Hozier wrote with pride that fewerthan ten percent of ships bound to UK portsfrom abroad arrived without first beingreported from one of the Lloyd’s signalstations. Lloyd’s now had its own signalmenworking at 17 stations in Great Britain and sixoverseas. Often on barren parts of the coast,the signal stations supplemented theintelligence the Agents provided. The systemdeveloped rapidly and by 1891, there were 40stations in the United Kingdom and 118abroad in which Lloyd’s had an interest.

Hozier kept up with the latest developmentsin communication technology. He was alsointensely interested in the work of a youngItalian, Guglielmo Marconi.

Marconi was just 19 years old when, in 1895,he began experiments in his father’s countryestate in Italy. He eventually succeeded insending wireless telegraph signals overapproximately two kilometres. He hadinvented the first practical wireless telegraphsystem. Within four years, his device, knownsimply as the ‘Marconi’, was being used tocommunicate across the English Channel.Less than two years later, a redesign made hissystem powerful enough to send acommunication across the Atlantic Ocean.

During August 1898, Lloyd’s set up a radioinstallation to operate between Ballycastle, Co.Antrim and Rathlin Island, a distance ofabout 10km (7 miles). Tests carried out wereso successful that Lloyd’s decided to equip alltheir signal stations with radio equipment.Three years later, Marconi had establishedradio stations in England and at Rosslare andCrookhaven in Ireland.

Unfortunately, Hozier’s involvement withMarconi eventually ended in dispute andultimately led to his resignation from Lloyd’s.But his forward thinking had ensured thatLloyd’s was at the forefront of thecommunication revolution.

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Settling claims abroad

Trade with China had been thrown open in1854. Isolationist Japan had accepted contactwith the West, and the Suez Canal opened in1869. Yet all Lloyd’s claims still had to besettled in London. This meant that anoverseas shipper with a claim on a Lloyd’spolicy could wait months for his money whilehis documents slowly made their way toLondon by sea. It was time for administrationto catch up with communication, and onceagain, Hozier instigated a new system. Thisone allowed Agents to pay cargo claimsabroad.

Little background information survived as tothe discussions at the time, as Albert Cooper,the Controller of Agencies between 1945 and1956, remarked in his short history of theagency network. But the move was clearlyintended to put Lloyd’s in a position to offeras good a service as that provided by theinsurance companies through their branchesand correspondents in foreign ports.

Hozier’s experimental claims settling servicebegan with 14 Agencies in the Indian sub-continent, the Far East and Australia-NewZealand. It was successful and eventuallyextended to other parts of the world, exceptthe United Kingdom. He had to persuadeconservative underwriters to give the necessaryauthority to the Agents and the Agents toaccept the additional work, but on 27 May1886, the following notice appeared in Lloyd’s List:

The Committee of Lloyd’s desire to givenotice that on and after 1 June 1886,arrangements will come into force bywhich claims upon policies underwrittenat Lloyd’s will be payable at the principalports in India, China and Australia.

From the beginning, there were limits on theAgents’ authority. They were simply allowedto adjust and settle losses for underwriters andpurchase the claim on behalf of theCorporation of Lloyd’s.

According to Cooper, Lloyd’s recognised thatto empower Agents to pay claims on behalf ofunderwriters would have created unwelcomelegal implications. Agents would have becomedirect representatives of the underwriters, andtherefore liable to suit in case of dispute. Moreseriously, it might seem as though Lloyd’sunderwriters were carrying on business in thatcountry through an agent without thenecessary authority. As Cooper comments:‘The wording used in the clause continued formore than 70 years, so it must have been welldrafted.’

Charges for the settlement of claims abroadgenerated a useful source of income to theCorporation funds. The Committee of Lloyd’sinitially charged ten percent of the premium,out of which the Agent’s fee for the work ofsettlement was paid. For their pains, theAgents received one percent of any settlementamount with a minimum of one guinea(£1.05) in addition to their survey fees, firstpaid by the Committee of Lloyd’s. By 1887,the Committee had reduced the fee to fivepercent of the premium, and the underwritershad taken over paying the Agents. TheCommittee’s charges were adjustedperiodically, but from then on, it became thepractice for the underwriters to pay theAgents’ fees.

Heard around the world

The Lloyd’s Agent at Batavia, aScotsman named McColl, and a MrSchuit, the Agent at Anjer, made a tourof Bantam following the eruption anddestruction of the volcano Krakatoa inAugust 1883, according to RupertFurneaux’s 1965 Krakatoa, an account ofthe explosion that caused the loudestsound ever recorded.

He recounted that Schuit had earlierhad a lucky escape from one of the tidal waves generated in the run-up to thecataclysmic explosion. Schuit had goneto the beach to see about the mooring ofhis boats and an immense wave, whichhe estimated at 90 feet high, sweptwithout warning over Anjer, completelyruining the town and penetrating twomiles inland. Schuit saved his life byjumping into one of the nearby boatsbut seven of his family were lost.

Furneaux quotes McColl’s account of the visit with Schuit to what had beenthe important station of Merak, sometime after the cataclysmic eruption: ‘Theentire distance traversed by us, about sixmiles, was one scene of desolation whichsimply cannot be described orunderstood unless seen.’

Leaving Merak, the men had to turninland to avoid a long lagoon createdwhen the sea penetrated six milesinland. Not one stone of the post stationat Tjiadieng was standing. Eventuallyreaching Anjer, the men found that it was difficult to believe that the townhad ever existed.

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Below: Early image of the Suez Canal


Again, Hozier’s foresight proved vital. Thesystem worked well. As Gibb comments:‘Three generations of underwriters had causeto thank Hozier for cargo business whichcould have been lost without the settlementof the claims abroad system.’

‘Not a single dollar’: solving more moneyproblems

In January 1825, W.S. Skinner, the Agent atBoston, reported that all autumn packets,traders and other vessels had arrived safely.Despite the large volume of activity, thanksto his various inspections and arrangementsunderwriters would face no claims.Therefore, ‘he would not get a single dollarfor his trouble’. His reward was the thanks ofthe Committee and to have his letterdisplayed in the reading room. Clearly,money – or lack of it – could be a majorsource of friction between Lloyd’s and theAgents. As Gibb comments:

The right to be called Lloyd’s Agentsmust have given a firm remarkableadvantages, for in most cases the directreward in money was not considerable,and even as late of the middle of the19th century the duties of the Agentswere sometimes uncomfortable ordangerous.

In an effort to solve the problem, in 1870,Lloyd’s created a system of guaranteeingcertain Agents a minimum income, oncondition that they would share any excessover this figure with Lloyd’s. As Cooperremarks: ‘The somewhat curious view washeld at the time that Agents were open tothe temptation of encouraging claims inorder to provide themselves with an incomeand that this temptation could best beremoved by ensuring the Agents could rely

upon a reasonable remuneration whetherthere were claims or not.’

Cooper gives the following examples of howthe scheme worked in his account of thedevelopment of the agency network. In 1875,heavy claims at Le Havre resulted in theAgent receiving fees, it was believed, of about£1,000. After investigation, the followingyear they fell to around £150 but graduallyrose again to about £600 a year. TheCommittee of Lloyd’s decided that theAgent at Le Havre should have a guaranteedminimum income of £350 a year and thatyear the fees fell to £402.

There were also complaints about claims atGenoa, and in 1884, the Committeeguaranteed the agency £200 a year. The fees,which had reached £460 in 1881, fell to £209in 1884. To support this scheme, theCommittee established a £2,000 guaranteefund in 1884 and got the leading marineinsurers to contribute, reflecting the valuethat other marine underwriters got from theLloyd’s agency network. Initially, the fundwas made up as follows:

Lloyd’s £1,315London Marine Insurance Companies £300Liverpool Underwriters £250Australia & New Zealand Underwriters’Association £50Glasgow Underwriters £50General Shipowners’ Society £25Antwerp Underwriters £10

Gradually, the guaranteed income schemespread to include Agents in other portsincluding at Brest, Bremen, Constantinople,Dardanelles, New Orleans, New York,Venice, Odessa, and Pernambuco. Theamounts guaranteed ranged from £50 atBrest to £500 in New York.

Some Agents did not want to participate inthe scheme – possibly because their incomeswere large enough for the share they wouldhave to pay Lloyd’s to be unacceptably high.Lloyd’s did not insist. Certainly, as a generalrule, payments by Agents into the fundexceeded payments out, so there was no callon the guarantors.

The scheme seemed to ease some tensions butimprovements could still be made. A sub-committee appointed by the AgencyCommittee met on 1 March 1886 andsuggested a re-evaluation of terms ofpayments for Agents who had custody ofcargo landed or goods for reshipment. Laterthat year, Lloyd’s considered introducing anextension of a fee scale to Lloyd’s Agents,based on the Foreign Office’s scale of fees toconsular officers in similar circumstances. Theoriginal scale differentiated between Agenciesin European and Russian ports on the BlackSea and those elsewhere. In what would nowbe called a consultation exercise, Lloyd’ssought views from Agents, chambers ofcommerce, marine insurance companies andunderwriters’ associations in the UnitedKingdom and continental Europe. The scalewas amended in 1889 and remained inoperation until 1920 when abnormal post-warconditions prompted some Agents to ask for asubstantial increase.

In his 1895 report on Lloyd’s Agencies,Hozier made it clear that for Lloyd’s theservice that the Agents provided withoutcharge was material to the commercial successof the market. ‘The profits derived from thesale of maritime intelligence enable themembers of Lloyd’s to conduct their businesson more favourable and more economicalterms than their competitors.’ The Agentswere well placed to take on the challenges thata new century would bring.

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The San Francisco earthquake

At 5:13 am on 18 April 1906, a massiveearthquake hit the city of San Francisco,estimated at 8.25 on the Richter scale.Eyewitnesses described terrifying scenes, ‘athousand stones’ falling on a man, instantlykilling him, wagons full of fruit and vegetableslying broken in the road next to the brokenbodies of the sellers, buildings crumbling ‘asone might crush a biscuit in one’s hand.’

Worse was to come however, as fire tookhold. The city burned for three days, leavingmore than half the 400,000 populationhomeless. ‘Fires were blazing in all directions,’wrote businessman Jerome B. Clarke,describing what he saw when disembarkingfrom his regular ferry trip from his home in

Berkeley, ‘and all of the finest and best of theoffice and business buildings were eitherburning or surrounded. They pumped waterfrom the bay, but the fire was soon too faraway from the water front to make efforts inthis direction of much avail. The water mainshad been broken by the earthquake, and sothere was no supply for the fire engines andthey were helpless.’

As the fires burned out, the city assessedthe damage. Around 28,000 buildings hadbeen destroyed. The premises of theshipping and cargo handling firm ofCatton Bell & Co, the Lloyd’s Agentssince 1887, were among them, and it tookmonths before the firm reopened at adifferent site. An official US agency reportput the damage from the earthquake and

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fires at $400 million in contemporarycurrency, around $10 billion in currentvalues. According to Lloyd’s, the disastercost the market more than $50 million –the equivalent of more than $1 billiontoday.

Lloyd’s response to the disaster was rapid andappropriate. Prominent Lloyd’s underwriterCuthbert Heath, who had forged links withthe United States property insurance market,telegraphed his San Francisco Agent to ‘pay allclaims’ irrespective of policy wordings. Hisaction created long lasting goodwill for Lloyd’sin the United States.

On a much smaller scale, Sir J. Rennell Roddwrote in his Social and Diplomatic Memories1902-1919 of how one Agent had kept a cool

‘Capable at a moment when mostpeople had lost their heads’:The First World War and thegathering storm


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San Francisco, California, Earthquake April 18, 1906. Downtown San Francisco showing residents watching fire after the 1906 earthquake.Photo by Ralph O Hotz and provided by U.S. Geological Survey Photographic Library


head during the aftermath of the devastating earthquake in Calabria, Italyin 1908: ‘We ordered a number of wooden houses in England, and, after thefirst urgent demands for food and clothing had been met, concentrated ourefforts on reconstruction. With the cooperation of the local authorities andthe energetic arch-priest, we rebuilt the Calabrian village of San Giovanni,where not a house had remained standing.

‘The work was carried out systematically with due regard to sanitation onconcrete foundations round a central garden area. At Messina also weconstructed for the survivors among the British colony a number ofcomfortable wooden houses which were still in occupation when I visitedthe spot some 15 years afterwards. One of the first to be completed wasassigned to Mr. Beyliss Heynes, formerly Lloyd’s Agent, who had shownhimself so capable at a moment when most people had lost their heads thatI appointed him Vice-Consul within a few days of the earthquake, trustingthat the Foreign Secretary would confirm my action, which he did not failto do.’

A network fragmented: the impact of the First World War

Archduke Franz Ferdinand was the heir to the throne of Austro-Hungary.On 28 June 1914, Gavrilo Princip, a member of the Serbian terrorist groupThe Black Hand, fired two shots at the archduke’s car. The first shot killedhis pregnant wife, Sophia. The second hit the Archduke in the neck. Hedied shortly afterwards.

The Archduke’s assassination set off a chain of events that rapidly led to fullscale war between the so-called Central Powers, led by the German,Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman empires, against the British Empire,France and Russia and later Italy and the United States. The sheer scale andcomplexity of the hostilities split nations, armies, principalities and families.It was bound to affect the far-flung Agency network. At the start of thewar, Lloyd’s had 21 Agencies in Germany, five in German colonies, five inAustria and 14 in Turkey. The latter were held by a mixture of nationalities,mostly British, but some other European. These Agencies ceased with theoutbreak of war. However, Lloyd’s had to consider the position of Agents ofenemy nationality in ports in neutral countries. Some had representedLloyd’s for more than 30 years.

After taking advice from the Foreign Office, in November 1914, Lloyd’srelieved more than 20 Agents in ports such as Vladivostok, Santander andBari of their positions, and asked the local British consul to take over theirduties for the duration of hostilities. Around 50 positions becamenecessarily vacant between 1914 and 1919. Lloyd’s wrote courteously to

Clarifying maritime law

The importance of Britain’s trade, the activity of Lloyd’s andLondon marine insurance companies, and British courtjudgements meant that Britain took a leading role in maritimelaw. In the 19th century, Lloyd’s and the company marketassociation, the Institute of London Underwriters (ILU),together developed standardised marine insurance clauses.Known as the Institute Clauses, they are still in use inmodified form. In 1906 the Marine Insurance Act codified theprevious common law on insurance.

Owners and underwriters frequently complained aboutdemands from salvors for what they considered excessive lumpsum payments. In 1890, the Committee of Lloyd’s openeddiscussions with salvors in the Dardanelles and Black Sea,where groundings were common. Lloyd’s wanted salvagerewarded on a ‘no cure no fee’ basis, with disputes settled bypre-agreed arbitration. As it was, any attempt at redress meantdifficult and expensive litigation in local courts. This was rarelysuccessful.

After mixed success in agreeing terms with salvors, Lloyd’sproposed a draft model salvage contract, providing that a fixedprice should be paid to the salvor on completion of theservices, to be held on deposit pending the outcome of anyarbitration. The Lloyd’s Agency Committee approved thedraft on 28 July 1891, but it was not accepted immediately. InJanuary 1908, Lloyd’s was finally able to publish the firstLloyd’s Standard Form of Salvage Agreement, now known asLloyd’s Open Form (LOF). It allowed the ship’s master andthe salvor to get on with the business of rescuing the crew andsaving as much property as possible without the delay ofnegotiations about money.

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these Agents, explaining the decision andasking them to hand all their Lloyd’sdocuments to the British consul. The letterthanked them for their past services andexpressed regret at the end of the businessrelationship.

Inevitably, personal interest affected somedecisions. In August 1914, the BritishConsul-General Sir Cecil Hertalet wasinstrumental in getting Lloyd’s to request theresignation of its Antwerp Agent, WalterBlaess. Blaess had been the Agent since 1895and was Belgian.

Lloyd’s initially resisted and expressedconfidence in him, but ultimately concededto the ‘strong opinion’ of the Foreign Officethat the Agent should be British, eventhough there were no personal objections toBlaess. With great regret, Lloyd’s askedBlaess to resign and appointed Evan Thomasof Gellatly, Hankey & Co as the new Agent.Thomas was only able to remain until theGerman occupation in October 1914, butthe firm was reappointed in May 1919.

Business continued at Lloyd’s throughoutthe First World War when the introductionof new weaponry and technology, especiallysubmarines, resulted in very heavy losses tomerchant shipping. An acute staff shortagein the market led to the creation of theLloyd’s Policy Signing Bureau in 1916. ByJune that year, before the introduction ofcompulsory service, nearly 2,500 men fromthe market had done military service. TheLloyd’s war memorial lists more than 200men who were killed.

At 10.30 am on Monday 11 November,1918, the Chairman of Lloyd’s, Charles deRougemont, announced to the market thatthe Armistice had been signed that morning

and that hostilities would cease at 11 am.The formalities took longer. The Treaty ofVersailles with Germany was signed on 28June 1919. This could explain why the UKGovernment and Lloyd’s instructed Agentsto avoid acting for associations or companiesof the former enemies until November 1919.

At that point, the Foreign Office respondedto an inquiry from Lloyd’s to say that Agentswere at liberty to act for associations orcompanies of enemy nationality. The ForeignSecretary, Lord Curzon, however, took theopportunity to impress on Lloyd’s ‘theextreme importance in the national interest’that all the Agents were British subjects.

The regal perambulations of Major Lindsay

After the war ended, the Committee ofLloyd’s decided it needed a more systematicapproach to oversight of the Agencies. ‘Somemeans of supervision or control’ was needed,‘which at the present time does not exist.’

The system of selecting and overseeingAgents had certain weaknesses. They wereusually selected by correspondence.Candidates would give details of theirqualifications and experience, and forwardtestimonials from suitable people. Inquirieswould be made among the candidate’sacquaintances and colleagues. Vacancies andappeals for testimonials first appeared on thefront page of Lloyd’s List in 1855, amongthe official notices and classifiedadvertisements. Below is an examplepublished in 1859:

The Committee hereby give NOTICETHAT applications and testimonials will bereceived at the Secretary’s Office for theunder mentioned AGENCIES up to thedates affixed:

Aguadilla & Mayaguez (Puerto Rice) 2ndAprilAlbany (W.A) Bassein 25th JuneCanton & Macao 23rd AprilChale (Isle of Wight)Galatz & IbraelGranvilleLagos (Bight of Benin) 22nd JanuaryLagos (Portugal)LombockLymingtonMytelineNassau (New Providence) 5th MarchRichmond, USRosanio (River Parana) 12th MarchSouth Ronaldsha 29th JanuarySuezLloyd’s, 29th December 1858, GA Halstead,SecretaryLloyd’s List, 3 January 1859

Once appointed, an agent was subject to fewofficial checks. This could cause problems.The Agent’s business or health mightdeteriorate, for example, resulting in his beingunable to fulfil his duties. In unusual cases, theperson appointed ‘has not occupied that statuswhich is desirable of a Lloyd’s Agent, hisoffice has been meanly situated and altogetherthe representation has not been such as hasenhanced the prestige of Lloyd’s at theparticular port,’ as one internal memorandumcommented. Though ‘it is a testimony to thecare which has been taken by the AgencyCommittee that cases of bad selection havebeen so few.’

Although inspections had taken place in theUnited Kingdom and been suggested foroverseas agencies, no one had gone specificallyto visit the Agents abroad since theindefatigable Sir Henry Hozier’s travels 50years previously. Instead, Lloyd’s depended on

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sporadic reports from members of theCommittee, or underwriters who called onAgents during their travels, or on meetingswith Agents who came to London.

So in 1922, Lloyd’s appointed its firstInspector of Agencies, Major Forrest Lindsay.He had worked in industry since leavingschool and served in the First World Warwith distinction. After a brief spell as assistantmanager and deputy underwriter with theAviation Insurance Association, he joinedLloyd’s where he remained until retirement in1946.

Lloyd’s drew up standardised report forms forhim to use, although the corporation employeewho wrote to him in July 1929 was anxious toassure him that what appeared to be ‘asomewhat formidable document’ was nothingnew, but merely set out Lindsay’s handwrittennotes. The forms covered the way the Agentsconducted their business in terms of surveysand the supply of intelligence, bookkeeping,sub-agencies, salvage agreements, otherbusiness interests, any individuals or firms

whose claims should be examined withparticular care, general information about theport and more. Updated versions are still inuse today.

Lindsay went where the Committee directed.One letter informs him that his nextinspections should be in Faro and Porto inPortugal, then Alegre and Fayal in Brazil.The Chairman of Lloyd’s, the lettercontinues, has settled the date of departureand the order in which he should conductthe inspections. They were formal occasions:David Burrell, who was for many yearsassistant to the Controller of Agencies, heardMajor Lindsay’s visits compared to ‘a regalperambulation’ where the Agent wouldattend him on board ship.

William Astle, a long serving corporationemployee who worked in average/recoveriesand the Agency Department, wrote downsome of his memories of Lindsay in 1985.His schedule was punishing. Lindsay appearsto have been travelling almost continuouslyin the period immediately before the Second

World War and at least until 1943. He wasdispatched to deal with a situation in Genoaafter the existing agency was found to beunder German control. He travelled toDanzig after the Agent there resigned in1935. October 1941 found him in BuenosAires, where he inspected the Agent CooperBrothers. He then spent three weeks visitingLloyd’s Agents in Rosario and Montevideo,and left Buenos Aires in February 1942.

His assignments could be dangerous. Airtravel was very limited and some visitsrequired long ocean voyages. In somecountries, Lindsay’s only means of transportmight be a canoe, or on foot through thejungle. On one South American trip to sortout some problems at a doubtful sub-agencyup-river, Lindsay was greeted by gunfire.

February 1943 found Lindsay in hospital inValparaiso, Chile, recovering from anoperation. The room suddenly began toshake and his bed moved smartly across theroom. As the nurse came in, Lindsay tookcharge and ordered her under the bed, while

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Right: Admiral Sir Edward F. Inglefield, 1913


he stayed where he was. ‘Major Lindsay declaresthat his nurse never seemed to like him very muchafter this, and adds with a puzzled expression thathe did try to do the right thing,’ the in-housemagazine Lloyd’s Log reported. ‘We almost forgetto mention that the cause of the incident was anearthquake.’ He was greatly respected in theunderwriting rooms, recalled Astle, to the extentthat members would ask him to give an address inthe library when he returned from inspections.

Suspicious losses

The price of staple goods and of manufacturedproduce fell sharply in the aftermath of the war,and the years 1920-1921 were ones of heavyclaims for Lloyd’s underwriters. On 1 January1920, the Secretary of Lloyd’s, Sir EdwardInglefield, wrote to Agents reminding them thatinvoice values were no criterion of market valuesand that underwriters feared that surveyorswould confuse loss by damage with loss resultingfrom the drop in value. Agents, he said, ‘shouldtake great care to ensure that the values shown ina survey report reflected depreciation fromdamage only.’

Hull values also plummeted after the war. Theresult was attempted fraud on an unprecedentedscale. According to Charles Wright and ErnestFayle’s 1927 A History of Lloyd ’s. ‘The loss of avessel from an insured peril meant to its ownerthe difference between prosperity and bankruptcy.’On 19 March 1921, Inglefield wrote to Lloyd’sAgents about suspicious losses of Greek andSpanish tonnage:

The circumstances attending the sinking ofmany of these vessels are that without anyapparent cause they suddenly and mysteriouslyare found to be leaking, the crew get away intheir boats to some other vessel or to theshore, and underwriters are asked to pay for atotal loss.

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Agents, Inglefield said, should be on thelookout for any such instances in the vicinityof their ports or where crews from suchvessels landed. In such cases, they shouldimmediately take ‘energetic steps’ to getstatements from the witnesses as to the causeand circumstances of the loss and investigatefully. They were to keep Lloyd’s informed, bycable if necessary.

Losses by pilferage had increased. InNovember 1920, Inglefield issuedinstructions to Agents on the need for themto be very specific in their survey reports onthe date of the vessel’s arrival and the date oflanding, when the goods were placed in thewarehouse, and what condition they were in.Underwriters, he said, were not responsiblefor losses after landing or only for a limitedtime. Agents should impress on consigneesthe need to take prompt delivery of theirgoods. Further instructions followed on 28September 1921 from the Controller ofAgencies, Walter Boxford, who advised thatwhen asked to survey a cargo for theft andpilferage, Agents should always insist onseeing the shipping invoice, with a view todetecting fraudulent claims.

The charges controversy

In 1886, Lloyd’s had set out a scale of feesfor Agents for small services based on thescale of consular fees fixed by Parliament.Before then, it appears there had been nofixed amounts paid to Agents except in avery small number of cases. But in theimmediate aftermath of the First World War,the fees paid to the Agents more thandoubled. They had been £73,678 in 1913. In1919, they were £176,896. In response to anexchange in Spring 1920 between the Lloyd’sAgent in Stockholm, Olson & Wright, andbrokers A. S. Henry & Co. over ‘a rather

excessive’ charge for the survey andcertification of one bale of mohair satin,Lloyd’s agreed to double the scale of fees. Itaccepted that Agents might be paying threeor four times more for staff and premisesthan in 1914.

By December, however, a Lloyd’smemorandum commented that becauseAgents were charging full fees forconsignments of small value, the fees hadbecome out of proportion to the size of theclaims and as a result, the consignees weretending to circumvent the Lloyd’s Agent.The memorandum advised that full feesshould not be charged in these cases even ifjustified by the amount of trouble involved,because otherwise business would be divertedinto other channels.

Individual Agents found themselveschallenged, as this exchange of cables shows.Lloyd’s cabled the Agent in Salonika,Greece, Whittall Saltiel and Co: ‘EXPLAINENORMOUS INCREASE OF FEESGENERALLY BY CABLE AND WRITEFULL DETAILS.’

The response was: ‘INCREASE DUE TOUNUSUAL POSTWAR COMMERCELOCAL AND TRANSITCONSTANTINOPLE SERBIA.’

The Agent in Lima, Beausire & Co.,responded: ‘FEES INCREASE DUEINCREASED IMPORTATIONSPRACTICALLY ALL INSUREDAGAINST ROBBERY AND AVERAGE.’

In a follow up letter, Beausire also citedmuch increased costs. ‘Our expensesgenerally are now much heavier and werecertainly two and one half times more in1919 than in 1918 and this particularly

applies to the department which looks afteryour Agency.’

It soon emerged that the immediate post-war period had been exceptional and fees didnot continue to grow at the same rate. ButAgents were still under financial pressure. Inthe 1920s, two Agents became bankrupt, andunderwriters ranked as creditors in theproceeds of the sale of damaged cargoeswhich were in the Agents’ possession. Toprotect underwriters against the insolvencyof any Agent in future, the Committeeintroduced a form of financial guaranteeprovision as a condition of the appointmentof new Agents or when Agents came up forreview.

Some people who had held Agencyappointments for many years initiallyresented the demand for a guarantee,according to Controller of Agencies AlbertCooper’s history of the Agency system. Butby the time he was writing, some 30 yearslater, there were relatively few Agencies thathad not provided one.

By now, the Agency Committee hadbecome unwieldy. It had 25 members, as alegacy of the power struggle with theSalvage Association in the 1870s. TheCommittee decided that from 1 January1925, it should be slimmed down. Itproposed halving Lloyd’s representation from12 to six, plus two direct from theunderwriting room, but also reducing that ofthe Salvage Association to two from five.The Institute of London Underwriters(ILU), the company marine marketassociation, and Liverpool UnderwritersAssociation were to have two each, and theGlasgow Underwriters Association one. TheGeneral Shipowners’ Society was to bedropped altogether.

Chapter Five


Chapter Five

An exceptional man

In 1908, Sir Wilfred Grenfell, Lloyd’s Agent, preacher, photographer, justice of the peace,cartographer, writer, lecturer and artist, was travelling across the Newfoundland ice tooperate on a young man’s leg when his sledge ran into slushy ice and sank. He found refugeon an ice-floe and only survived the sub-zero temperatures overnight by killing three of hisdogs, an act which saddened him immensely.

Grenfell had joined the Royal National Mission to Deep-Sea Fishermen as a medicalmissionary in 1887, shortly after qualifying as a doctor. After serving for five years in thiscapacity, from Iceland to the Bay of Biscay, he did his marine training and fitted out themission’s first hospital ship. Visiting Labrador in 1892, he was so shocked by the poor stateof the people that he decided to devote the rest of his life to improving their lot.

Grenfell was Lloyd’s Agent in Labrador from 1903 to 1936. As one of his many projects,which included opening hospitals, schools and orphanages, he arranged for Lloyd’sunderwriters to insure a shipment of 300 reindeer from Lapland to Labrador with a partyof Lapps to look after them. The animals arrived safely.

In addition to many other honours, in 1927 Grenfell received a knighthood. Ill healthforced him to retire and he died at Charlotte, Vermont, 9 October 1940. According to hisobituary in Lloyd’s Log in November 1940, he ‘provided valuable service to Lloyd’s whencruising in his mission ship the Strathcona, which as a master mariner, he navigatedhimself.’

The return of the salaried Agent

Lloyd’s again experimented with exclusive,salaried Agents when, in 1920, it appointedH.K. Fowler in New York. Official thinkingran along these lines: that this arrangementwould gradually take over in all the mostimportant Agencies and that it would beadvantageous to underwriters and theCorporation of Lloyd’s.

To this end, Lloyd’s also appointed anexclusive Agent in Bombay. A second manwas sent out as his deputy with the idea ofsetting him up in an Agency of his own if thescheme proved worthwhile. It did not workout that way. It soon become apparent, wroteAlbert Cooper, that the exclusive Agencieswere likely to show a loss. They had noincome other than Lloyd’s surveys and claimssettling fees against which to set costs. Onlyone further salaried Agent was appointed: A.Prüser in Copenhagen in 1931.

When Fowler retired in 1926, New Yorkreverted to a conventional agencyarrangement. The exclusive appointment atBombay continued until 1947 andCopenhagen until 1951. According to Cooper,the principle of an exclusive appointment wasideal from a working point of view, because itensured that the Agency was impartial andfree from conflicting interests. But apart fromthe financial liabilities, there were all thebusiness, tax and financial implications ofwhat was effectively a branch office. It wascurious, he remarked, that once they wererestored to conventional Agencies, New Yorkand Bombay became among the mostprosperous in operation.

Meanwhile, the traditionally appointedAgents continued their business, as somefamilies had done for generations. The last

Below: Sir Wilfred Grenfell, Lloyd’s Agent in Labrador 1903-1936


member of the Broad family to hold theFalmouth Agency appointment, Cecil Broad,died in 1928. The family had bequeathed thegoodwill of the business of William Broad &Son to William Jarvis, who had been with thefirm for over 21 years and manager for theprevious nine. Lloyd’s continued the Agencywith him.

In 1935 a rumour reached Lloyd’s that Jarvishad discontinued the firm of William Broad,closed the office and gone to work for ashipbroker. Not at all, Jarvis said. He haddisposed of the goodwill of the Broadshipbroking business. Since maintaining theoffice was no longer feasible, he had movedinto a rented office in a building belonging toFox & Co., the other important tradingcompany in Falmouth.

Lloyd’s wanted more information about Fox’sbusiness interest. What would the relationshipbe with Fox & Co? How would the Lloyd’sAgency plate be displayed? (In October 1924,Lloyd’s had decided that all its Agents shouldhave uniform name plates, and it adopted thedesign then in use in Le Havre. From then on,each new Agent was to receive a name plateand was only to be asked to pay for it if thesize of the Agency justified it.) Eventually, on12 February 1936, the Committee of Lloyd’sdecided to continue the Agency with WilliamBroad & Co – and Jarvis apologised for failingto keep the Committee up to date.

Clarifying and codifying: changes to the law

The 1920s saw more legislation which affectedAgents’ work. The Carriage of Goods by SeaAct 1924, a measure concerned with the rightsof cargo owners and their insurers, came intoeffect from 1 January 1925. This importantpiece of shipping legislation incorporated theHague Rules, a convention that established a

minimum standard of liability for oceancarriers for loss or damage to cargo.

Walter Boxford, then Controller of Agencies,sent a circular out to Agents on 1 December1924. He called their attention to theimportance of insisting that consignees file aclaim against the shipowner or carrier without

delay in the event of loss or damage. Evenunder the more limited grounds for liabilityagainst the carrier before the new Act,underwriters had sometimes been barred fromrecoveries because claims were filed late.

After a few months’ experience with the newregime, Boxford sent another circular,

Chapter Five

Walter Boxford, Controller of Agencies 1919-1941


informing the Agents that consigneesrequesting surveys should be asked to completea new form of application. This would requirethem to state the date of their claim againstthe carrier. The market clearly felt that sinceconsignees with a short or damaged cargo werelikely to turn first to the Lloyd’s Agent, he wasin the best position to draw attention to theprovisions of the Hague Rules and stress theneed for a claim against the carrier.

This was followed by an updated version of theLloyd’s Form of Salvage Agreement, drawingAgents’ attention to various changes, forexample, affecting the security required by thesalvage contractor and the contractor’s lien onthe salved property. The following year,another circular gave details of revisions to the1890 York/Antwerp Rules on General Averageand highlighted the treatment of cash depositscollected for cargo liability.

In September 1933, Lloyd’s authorised Agentsto adjust and settle claims on brokers’certificates of insurance against cover placedwith Lloyd’s underwriters. The brokers hadargued that they were losing business to localinsurance companies because they could notprovide, on the spot, the necessary certificatesto complete clients’ shipping documents. Theremay also have been concerns in the marketabout the quality of some of the adjustmentsmade abroad. Albert Cooper was at pains topoint out that although settlement of claimsabroad staff sometimes spotted mistakes, theobjective was to get the claims to theunderwriters as soon as possible after receipt,not subject them to detailed examination.

The book of special instructions for thesettlement of claims abroad was now entirelyrewritten to bring it up to date. Boxford sentout copies of the new books in January 1934.It set out the duties of Lloyd’s Agents in

relation to the scheme, with guidance on theinterpretation of insurance conditions andcalculation of claims.

Agents are well situated: non-marineinsurance

Lloyd’s first experiences of aviation insurancewere not a success. In July 1912, according toD. E. W. Gibb, military trials of aircraft weredue to take place on Salisbury Plain. A Lloyd’snon-marine syndicate agreed to cover some ofthe aircraft. Sadly, as Gibb writes: ‘the weatherwas bad, the crashes were numerous, and theloss on the policies heavy – so heavy, indeed,that the underwriter of the syndicate decidedto give up the insurance of aeroplanesimmediately.’

Once the First World War was over, however,underwriters started thinking again about thispotential new source of business. Lloyd’s

prepared and issued a book of instructions forAgents and surveyors for dealing with aviationclaims in 1920. They hoped it would becomean important class for the insurance market.Generally, they were disappointed. Aviationinsurance was a high-risk business. Accidentswere frequent, repairs were expensive anddifficult, and navigation was rudimentary atbest. Consequently, it remained a nichemarket until after the Second World War.

Lloyd’s underwriters had begun writing non-marine business in earnest at the end of theprevious century and they tried to encourage aflow of non-marine business to Agents. Theydid not, however, necessarily see a role forLloyd’s Agents in handling the losses – aperception which supporters of the networkhave worked to overcome ever since.

In 1926, Lloyd’s compiled instructions toAgents regarding fire and other non-marine

Chapter Five

Essential qualifications: pig-sticking, jumping and tent-pegging

An Agent could be called upon to perform a variety of unusual tasks, so it was perhapsreasonable to expect a candidate to have a range of unusual skills. On 21 February 1921,Colonel Commandant W.G.K. Green wrote from Jenin in what was then Palestine, torecommend Major H.M. Davidson for a post with the Lloyd’s Agent in Bombay. ‘He hasalways been a keen and skilled horseman and man-at-arms. At polo, he has shownhimself above the average, playing for his regimental team for several years. At pig-sticking he was consistently successful and headed the list of ‘First Spears’ at Cawnpore in1913. At the divisional assault-at-arms, Ambala, 1910, he gained the distinction of bestman at arms (officers) in jumping, tent-pegging and mounted sabres.’ On the third andsecond page of his letter, Col Green does consider Major Davidson’s organisational andmanagement skills.

A handwritten note from William Astle noted that Major Davidson’s application wassuccessful. ‘Perhaps the Committee were impressed by his tent-pegging or trench warfare.’After which an unknown hand has added: ‘A man who could distinguish a tent peg froma chota-peg was probably invaluable.’


matters, and laid down a procedure forsupervising non-marine losses. Agents’districts were enlarged to include inlandterritory lying behind the coastal areas forwhich they were already responsible. In thesucceeding 20 years, however, these classesproduced little work for Agents because of thelongstanding practice by Lloyd’s underwritersof instructing one of the leading Londonassessors.

Another attempt was made to encourage theuse of Agents through the Non-MarineUnderwriters’ Association, but members wereconcerned that Agents were not experiencedenough in handling non-marine matters.

Albert Cooper commented: ‘It notinfrequently happens, too, that non-marineunderwriters ask that enquiry should be madeof Lloyd’s Agents as to the wisdom ofundertaking certain classes of non-marineinsurance (riots, strikes, etc) yet in the event of

losses arising from such business, the claimsare dealt with through other channels. I havealways held the view that Lloyd’s Agents, withtheir local knowledge, are generally speakingwell situated to render good service to non-marine underwriters, if given the chance tobuild up an organisation for the purpose.’

The gathering storm

Lloyd’s had spent the last 150 years in theRoyal Exchange. In 1923, the organisationbought a nearby site of more than three-quarters of an acre fronting Leadenhall Streetand Lime Street. Here, in May 1925, KingGeorge V laid the foundation stone for a newLloyd’s building. He spoke of how the Lloyd’sinformation network had helped the 1914-18war effort just as it had in 1793, when theNapoleonic Wars began.

‘In similar circumstances in our own day,’ theKing’s speech ran, ‘the Lloyd’s of 1914 rose

again to the situation and displayed the sameloyalty and public spirit as in 1793. The statelargely depended on the machinery of Lloyd’sfor reports, received through its Agents andother channels, which contributed to thesafety of British shipping and British cargoesof indispensable value to the welfare of thecountry.’

In 1928, the market moved into the newbuilding. Just over 10 years later, Lloyd’swould have to face the challenges of a worldwar once again. News from Agents abroadprovided clear evidence of the gatheringstorm.

Collecting and transmitting timely shippingintelligence was the first duty of Agents, andafter the First World War, Lloyd’s had workedhard to restore the network. But intelligencegathering between the wars was a complexbusiness. During the 1920s, Lloyd’s hadarrangements with 45 governments across theworld to forward information about maritimecasualties from coastal wireless stations to thelocal Lloyd’s Agent. The countries rangedfrom major trading nations, such as theUnited States and Canada, France, Germanyand Holland, to much smaller states such asthe Azores, Cuba and Uruguay.

The arrangements were not usually the subjectof formal agreements. They tended to be setout in correspondence between the Agent andthe government, or between Lloyd’s and thegovernment. Usually, Lloyd’s would requestthe government department concerned toinstruct the coastal wireless station operators.They would be asked to transmit immediatelyall the information they received concerningmaritime casualties to local Lloyd’s Agents.

In Yokohama, the Agent Cornes & Co hadrepeatedly applied to have casualty intelligence

Controlling codes and costs

Telegraph costs were based on number of letters or words, so controlling codes also meantcontrolling costs. A surviving pentagram shipping code, prepared by Lloyd’s for Agentsand dating from 1914, used five letter combinations to shorten telegraph reporting ofcasualties. For example, all reports related to abandonment began AB and followed withthree further letters to convey specific information. A simple ‘abandoned at sea’ wasABCEP, ‘abandoned at sea considered a total loss’ was ABDYX and ‘abandoned withmasts cut away, cargo shifted and pumps choked’ was ABKYK. It also covered many otherdetails likely to be included in a telegraph report.

In 1933, Lloyd’s wrote to Agents that from the end of the year telegraph authorities wereto charge by five, rather than 10, letter groups. Thus, where proper names could not becoded they should be written as one word, regardless of the number of letters. City ofLancaster, for example, should be CITYOFLANCASTER. If written in full, with thespaces, the three separate words would be counted and charged as four words; as oneword, there would only be 15 letters and so counted as three.

Chapter Five


from all Japanese stations supplied to thelocal Agents. When the Japanesegovernment refused, Lloyd’s persistedwithout success – even after the Britishambassador became involved. In 1930, afteran appeal to the Japanese ambassador inLondon, Lloyd’s was asked to provideinformation about its arrangements withother foreign governments for the supply ofinformation received at coastal wirelessstations. The Japanese suspicion aboutLloyd’s intelligence gathering was to haveunpleasant consequences once the warbegan.

Closer to home, the Baltic port of Danzig –now Gdansk – was a free state between thewars. As early as 1934, Lt CommanderThomas Burton, associated with the Lloyd’s

Agency at Danzig since 1927, becameuncomfortable with the political and economicclimate. He closed his firm to look foremployment elsewhere.

The Committee dispatched the redoubtableMajor Lindsay to Danzig to examine thesituation. He had trouble finding suitablepeople to replace Burton. Lloyd’s had astanding requirement that Agents should notbe associated with salvage companies, whichshut out the most obvious candidate.However, the appointment was sufficientlyattractive that the company, Bergenske BalticTransports, agreed to give up its salvagerelationship. It was appointed in 1935.

Nazi Germany occupied Danzig on 1September 1939. According to a Lloyd’s

memo dated 8 January 1940, Philip Rann, adirector of Bergtrans Shipping, called onWalter Boxford in London and advisedLloyd’s that the company’s Scandinaviandirectors had been able to leave before theoccupation.

In Tallinn, the Agent Ernst Sporlederremained optimistic. In October 1939, hewrote to Lloyd’s stating that he did not expect‘things to come to a critical point in the nearfuture politically or socially’ following a newpact between the Soviet Union and Estonia.He intended to stay put. In June 1940, he wasangrily contradicting the rumours that hadreached Lloyd’s that he was going to liquidatehis business. ‘On the contrary,’ he wrote, ‘mybusiness has expanded.’

The correspondence, however, came to anabrupt close in April 1941 with a letter fromthe ESSR Shipping Board headed inEstonian, Russian and English. It stated thatthe firm E. Sporleder Ltd had been liquidatedand Ernst Sporleder himself had emigrated toGermany. What became of him afterwards isnot known.

As the dark stain of war spread across Europeand Asia, many Agencies were closed. Therewere 46 Lloyd’s Agencies in Germany, Italyand other enemy countries and a further 88Agencies in territories occupied by Germany,Italy and their allies. The legal view was thatthese Agencies were necessarily vacant at theoutbreak of war.

Where Agencies remained open, Lloyd’sexpected the Agents to continue to provideshipping intelligence during the war, and thevalue of Lloyd’s to the country was againacknowledged in the special instructions givento the censors to facilitate its work for thegovernment.

Chapter Five

1928 Underwriting Room circa 1935


‘That was on our doorstep’

It was 11pm on the night of 10 May 1941,and Lloyd’s employee E.C. Bruce was in thereference room of the Lloyd’s building,discussing his summer holidays with a fellowmember of the fire squad. Then the sirensbegan screaming. It was the start of one of the‘longest and worst nights I have ever livedthrough,’ he wrote in Lloyd’s Log, a magazinefor staff:

Those who had to patrol during the nightand early morning were asleep, butupstairs were the usual games of cards,billiards and darts. Somebody at the barwas making toast and brewing tea. Atabout 11.45 pm there was a whistle like anexpress train entering a tunnel, followed bya mighty bang. Cripes! ‘That was on ourdoorstep,’ said one, as acrid fumes ofcordite or high explosive came rollingdown the stairs. ‘Gas,’ said someone. ‘No,

The Committee of Lloyd’s have re-appointed the following Agents:Rotterdam (Holland) John Hudig &Son. Postal address: Willemskade, 23.Telegraphic address: “Bolkhuyzen”

Lloyd’s List, 22 August 1945

H.E. [high explosives],’ said another. Twomen were sent to investigate and theyreported that the National Bank on thecorner of Lime Street, which had receiveda direct hit, was as flat as a pancake. It wasalso on fire. This was too near to becomfortable, and soon we knew that it hadbeen spotted from above. There were somemore whistles, followed by more bangs asthe H.E.s began to fall.

Bruce and his colleagues managed to keep thefire under control. Incredibly, the Lloyd’sbuilding survived – even though, according toBruce: ‘the buildings across the road were wellalight and the AFS [Auxiliary Fire Service],seeing that it was hopeless, used no more ofour water, leaving us with a few hundredgallons and a large building next to a flaminginferno. The heat was so intense that it wasburning the anti-splinter varnish and crackingour windows from a distance of 30 feet. Thewind was blowing from the east, buildings

‘Some got away…of othersthere is no news’: The SecondWorld War

Chapter Six


were falling, roofs crashing in, bombsdropping; and general pandemonium reigned.All we could do was to look at it!’

Britain had declared war on Germany inSeptember 1939. At first, there was littlefighting. On the home front, citizens preparedas best they could. The August 1940 issue ofLloyd’s Log reported that each Lloyd’svolunteer fire fighter did a 24-hour shift everyweek. In the event of an air raid warning, theywould report in full kit to an action station.Supper and breakfast were supplied during theweek and all meals at the weekend. (The Logwas more than just a source of seriousinformation: it also provided instructions forcard games for blackout evenings.)

Lloyd’s was right to prepare well. The Blitz – arelentless, heavy bombardment designed to‘soften up’ the population in preparation for aninvasion – began on 19 September 1940 andcontinued until Bruce’s shift on 10 May 1941.Around 43,000 people across the UK eventuallydied in the Blitz, with more than a million lefthomeless.

Lloyd’s had a shelter built in the sub-basementbut also prepared itself for a second possibility– that there would be too much damage or itwould become too dangerous to continuebusiness in London. It set up a duplicateorganisation in Pinewood in the countrysidewest of London and actually evacuated some ofthe corporation departments there.

Above: Lime Street / Fenchurch Avenue following air raid 10 May 1941

Right: Lime Street / Billiter Street following air raid 10 May 1941

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Chapter Six

and drink are plentiful – unlike in mainlandBritain, where rationing is in full swing.Intriguingly, Hutchinson doesn’t explainexactly why the two men made this journeyin the middle of the war.

In 1944, the Lloyd’s Agent from Sydney,W. G. de Gruchy, is entertained to lunchby the Chairman and Deputy Chairman ofLloyd’s and Walter Boxford. TheCommittee of Lloyd’s and underwriters’and brokers’ associations honour him inrecognition of his services to the market.

Major Lindsay returned to Britain in 1943after three years away. In Canada, he foundhimself meeting the sons and daughters ofhis friends in the United Kingdom whohad been evacuated there, and helpingthem to find their host families. His workduring his absence included visits toAgencies at Buenos Aires, Rosario andMontevideo. The Log reported: ‘He looksvery fit and well and is just as jovial as heever was.’

Many men from Lloyd’s were in uniform.Yet even in prison camp, some managed tokeep up their interests in insurance. In July1945, the Log reports on the InsuranceInstitute of Oflag VA in Germany where 33captured officers held fortnightly meetingsto discuss a series of insurance topics.

Intelligence and suspicion

In October 1942 Sir Eustace Pulbrook, theChairman of Lloyd’s throughout most ofthe Second World War, arrived in NewYork with Philip D’Ambrumenil, a memberof the Committee, and Walter Boxford, thefirst Controller of Agencies, who was nowthe Principal Clerk to the Corporation.Major Lindsay was waiting to greet them.

Agents at war

Ventry Calling, a translation of Bearnard Ó Lubhaing’s memoir in Irish, Ceann trá a hAon,recounts the events of a foggy evening in October 1939. A German U-boat sailed intoVentry harbour in Doneen in the south-west of Ireland, and anchored about 30 metresfrom the rocky shore. The U-boat had sunk the Diamantes, a Greek cargo ship, and theGermans were now ferrying the ship’s 28-man crew ashore in a rubber dinghy. The wholeoperation was over in an hour and the U-boat was gone before the Garda Siochana (thepolice) arrived to investigate.

According to Ó Lubhaing: Before the valiant captain bade goodbye to the Greeks, thestory later circulated that he advised them that Michael Long of Dingle would look afterthem. Michael had a pub at the head of the Quay where Máire de Barra’s Pub is today andhe was also Lloyd’s Agent in Dingle.

‘The story goes that the German captain had holidayed in Dingle before the War when hehad become acquainted with Michael, hence his parting message to have a pint ofGuinness in the Pub and tell Mikey Long that he was asking for him.’

Many years after the war, Werner Lott, the U-boat captain, and his crew of the U-boatreturned to Ireland and revisited the scene. The captain consumed a few pints in MikeyLong’s Pub and visited the hospital where a memorial plaque had been unveiled by agrateful Greek government. It was certainly true that Werner Lott not only sank theDiamantis and landed 28 Greek sailors at Ventry Bay and also returned to visit. Butaccording to the local paper, this 1984 visit was his first to Ireland. Sadly, the pre-war visitto Dingle must have been local colour.

The Blitz put many suburban railwaystemporarily out of action. Workers trying toget into the City of London became used todelays and diversions. Lloyd’s organised asystem of private motor coaches whichcollected staff on ten different routes aroundLondon and took them home before thenightly blackout. The scheme worked well,and no matter how severe the raid of theprevious night, Lloyd’s staff arrived regularlythroughout the whole winter before 9.30am.

As Lloyd’s Log shows, some Agents simplycarried on about their business during the war.

In 1942 a member of the Committee ofLloyd’s, T.L. Forbes, and a clerk to theCommittee, C.S. Hutchinson, make the longjourney by air to South Africa. In Lagos, theyare ‘kindly and hospitably entertained byLloyd’s Agents while at the port’, writesHutchinson in his Log account. He addsseparately: ‘I should like to place on record ourindebtedness to all the Lloyd’s Agents withwhom we came in contact. Their help andhospitality added greatly to the pleasure of thejourney.’ The round trip occupies some 164flying hours and a five day delay in Irelandwaiting for the weather to improve. The food


Chapter Six

Having entered the war in December 1941,US officials were suspicious that intelligenceof ships’ movements could leak out throughorders from US brokers to Lloyd’s. Theyforbade any insurance order being sent abroadthat indicated the ship or the voyageconcerned. Measures for controllinginformation about non-marine risks wereequally drastic.

No information concerning any project orfactory engaged in the war effort could bementioned in declarations for reinsurance. Thewording was so sweeping and the ban so tightthat they threatened to bring the flow ofbusiness from the United States into Lloyd’sto a halt. The risk to the market wasconsidered sufficient for the Lloyd’s men tomake the flight to North America, where theylargely succeeded in calming the USadministration’s fears.

The US was not the only power to harbourdoubts about the Lloyd’s intelligence network.The Allies were at war with Japan from 7December 1941 when Japan attacked the USbase at Pearl Harbour and invaded BritishMalaysia and Thailand. Cornes & Co hadbeen Lloyd’s Agents in Yokohama since 1868,and in Kobe from 1905. These appointmentswere automatically terminated. In addition tothese agencies, there were 36 principal Lloyd’sagencies in places occupied by the Japanese.‘Some of the Agents got away; of others thereis no news,’ said an internal memorandumfrom December 1942.

At the outbreak of war, Cornes & Co’s Britishpartners and managers were interned, alongwith all other Britons in Japan. TheYokohama manager H. F. Vincent, however,was taken from the camp and held for fourmonths under suspicion of espionage.Fortunately, after they extensively interrogated

Sir Eustace Pullbrook, Chairman of Lloyd’s 1926, 1940-46 & 1948


Chapter Six

him, the Japanese authorities dropped the caseagainst Vincent. He was released just in time tocatch an evacuation ship on 30 July 1942 andeventually got to Australia, apparently withoutincident. Cornes & Co’s Kobe partner left onthe same ship.

In a memo in Lloyd’s archives, Vincentreported: ‘The authorities seemed convincedthat Lloyd’s is nothing more than an espionageorganisation, and their Agents spies.’ They hadquestioned him at length about the history ofLloyd’s, its objects, the duties of Lloyd’s Agentsand so forth. ‘Special emphasis was laid on thereporting of ships’ movements and, of course,the fact that our advices latterly were passedthrough the hands of the British consulate wasregarded as particularly significant.’

Another of the Agent’s duties which rousedsuspicion was the periodic reporting of harbourfacilities, for publication in Lloyd’s ConfidentialIndex of Ports. Fortunately, one of the Cornespersonnel had decided against completing themost recent questionnaire. Vincent wrote:

It is just as well now that we did not carryout Lloyd’s instructions on that occasion. Iwas particularly careful to refrain from anymention of the world ‘admiralty’ (it wasfrom them, through the consulate, that wereceived instructions to change our methodof reporting the arrivals and departures),the word ‘confidential’ in respect of theports index …I was in fear all the time thatthese matters would slip out, as these facts,from their point of view, would have beenparticularly damning and would requireconsiderable explanation.

In peacetime, agents sent shipping informationopenly to Lloyd’s by cable and mail, but in war-time, it had to be routed through governmentchannels. Agents communicated movements to

an officer acting locally for the Minister ofTransport, who transmitted it to the ministryin London. Nearly every aspect of the Agents’duties came in for thorough scrutiny, statedVincent. ‘It was difficult to convince them thatwe received no remuneration for our‘espionage activities’. The only duty whichseemed innocent was the settlement of claimson Lloyd’s policies.’

Picking up the pieces

Before the Second World War, there had been46 Lloyd’s Agencies in enemy countries, andin territories occupied by Germany and Italy,there were a further 88 Agencies. As the wardrew to a conclusion, reappointing Agents tovacant positions in what had been enemyterritory became a priority. The legal view wasthat these Agencies had necessarily becomevacant at the outbreak of war. AfterwardsLloyd’s decided not to reappoint Agents ofenemy nationality.

Agents who had survived the war were keento resume business. The Rotterdam Agencyhad ceased to exist in 1940 when Germanyoccupied the Netherlands. The Hudig officewas seriously damaged, but all the partnersand staff came through the war safely. As soonas the Germans retreated in 1945, John Hudig& Son quickly applied for re-appointment.

The firm promised that as soon as direct postresumed, it would start reporting shippingintelligence and pick up correspondence onoutstanding cases. Its letter to Lloyd’sindicates how the firm supported itself duringthe war. Hudig’s, it said, was now able to offerextended experience in non-marine matters, asits Rotterdamsch Expertisebureau hadreceived an important share of the assessmentsof war, fire and burglary losses from Dutchunderwriters. The firm was reappointed on 15

August 1945, as was Alfred Schröder inAmsterdam.

Correspondence gradually resumed from war-battered countries. The firm Denis Frèreswrote from Bordeaux with news of its officesin South East Asia. In Saigon, the chairmanand his family were in good health and onlyone member of staff had been killed. In thenorth, however, the news was uncertain, andin Laos, Thakhek’s Agency manager had beenkilled, along with many other Europeans.

Hong Kong returned to British control andH. K. Gilman & Co was reappointed inOctober 1945. Agencies re-opened in somecities in China, but they were held by Britishfirms and with the approach of theCommunist party, they closed: Swatow in1950, Shanghai and Tsingtao in 1952, andCanton in 1953 (although this was nominallystill an Agency held by Gilman and operatedfrom Hong Kong). Now only the ChineseCommodity Testing Bureau could performsurveys on cargoes to China, and underwritershad to deal with claims on the strength of itsreports.

Archibald Cornes, son of the founder andcontroller of the Cornes business in Japan,sold his interests to Wheelock, Marden & Coof Hong Kong in 1947. A new company,Cornes & Co, was created to resume businessin Japan when permitted. Cornes & Co wasreappointed in Yokohama and Kobe in June1948, and remains the Agent for both portstoday. One new employee, Tatsuo Takahara,had been an officer in the Japanese ImperialNavy. He joined Cornes & Co shortly afterthe war ended, later taking over themanagement of the insurance division andjoined the company board. He workedtirelessly to promote Anglo-Japanese tradeand in 1976, he received an honorary Order of


Chapter Six

the British Empire (OBE) from the BritishCrown.

In other enemy ports, however, Lloyd’s tookmuch longer to reappoint Agents. In Cologneand other German ports, Agencies were vacantinto the 1950s.

Coming home

Buildings all around had been reduced torubble, but the Lloyd’s building was stillstanding when victory in Europe was formallydeclared on 8 May 1945. Victory in Japanfollowed on 15 August. But more than 200Lloyd’s men had died. Their names, and thoseof the men who died in the First World War,can still be seen on the Lloyd’s War Memorialwhich stands in the new building on LimeStreet today.

Gradually, men in the services and othersworking in the war effort came back to Lloyd’s.The Agency network had been severelydisrupted and there was much work to do torestore it. Albert Cooper had been running agovernment-backed insurance scheme duringthe war. He returned to the Agency Departmentas Controller of Agencies in November 1945.

Lloyd’s Log reported the return in June 1945 ofBrian Brown, the Agent from Newcastle whohad been taken prisoner in Italy. He had lostweight, said the Log, but he was ‘fit and well’.

Major Leslie Gibson, soon to become Inspectorof Agencies, had worked at Lloyd’s from 1922and joined the Royal Artillery in 1939. Heserved in France and the Far East and wascaptured by the Japanese. For three and a halfyears, he was a prisoner of war. In November1945, he called in to the office to see his oldcolleagues. He looked, noted the Log, ‘in muchbetter shape than expected.’

Albert Cooper (right), Controller of Agencies 1945-1956


The Cold War and the End of Empire

Since it opened in 1869, the Suez Canal hasbeen one of the world’s most importantstrategic waterways. Stretching from Port Saidin the Mediterranean Sea to Port Tawfik in theRed Sea, the Canal makes it possible for shipsto travel from Europe to Asia without havingto navigate around Africa.

It was always a great strategic and financialprize. In 1875, the British government boughtshares in the Suez Canal Company. By the1950s, the UK’s revenues from the canaltopped £35 million annually. But by then, theworld had changed and Egyptian PresidentGamal Nasser was no longer prepared to seethe Canal under the control of foreign powers.Britain and America had promised funding fora new Egyptian dam – the Aswan Dam. Ondiscovering that Nasser had been in talks withthe Soviet Union, they swiftly withdrew thatfunding. The Soviets then stepped in,promising an unconditional loan.

On July 26 1956, Nasser announced, during aspeech in Alexandria, the nationalisation of theSuez Canal Company. All revenue from the

waterway would now go to Egypt, towards thefunding of the Aswan Dam. His speech sparkedthe Suez Crisis. Britain, France – which alsohad a share in the Canal – and Israel attackedEgypt in October 1956. The UN quicklyhelped to negotiate a ceasefire. The crisis itselfhad been short-lived but proved to be one ofthe defining events of both the Cold War andthe gradual decline of the British Empire.

As ever, the Agency network reflected thesechanges. Agents in Egypt were caught in themiddle of the Suez Crisis. The Agent in Cairo,D.S. Delany & V. Mavian, was brieflysequestrated but soon de-sequestrated andcontinued to operate. In Alexandria, Manley &Co, the Agent since 1901, had been operatedby various partnerships shortly after World WarII. During the conflict, the Egyptiangovernment sequestrated the firm, and thecurrent partnership was subsequently woundup. The Lloyd’s Agency was declared vacant.Delany & Mavian looked after its businessfrom Cairo and were appointed full Agents in1960.

It was Winston Churchill – who was,incidentally, Sir Henry Hozier’s son-in-law –

‘He remains resilient andoptimistic’: Agents and thepost-war world

Mr R.G. Dundas, Lloyd’s Agent atTabriz, having left that town, theappointment is now vacant and ithas been decided to regard the Agencyas coming under the jurisdiction ofLloyd’s Agency at Teheran for thetime being

Lloyd’s List, 5 March 1952

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who famously spoke of the ‘Iron Curtainwhich had descended across Europe’ as theSoviet administration secured its grip on thecountries within its power.

Agencies which had operated in the Sovietbloc remained vacant for decades as the ColdWar took hold. Only the Polish andYugoslavian Agents supplied shippingmovements. It was possible to get through toEast Germany via Hamburg. Otherwise, evenin 1980, Lloyd’s Agency representation behindthe Iron Curtain was limited to Gdynia,Szczecin, Prague, Sofia and Rijeka. The Agentfrom Sofia seemed to be looking over hisshoulder when he came to London, formerController of Agencies John Kooymanobserved.

On 15 August 1947, India declaredindependence from Britain. Other territoriesin Asia, Africa and the Middle East rapidlyfollowed: Britain withdrew from Palestine in1948 and by 1968 almost all Britain’s coloniesin Africa and the West Indies were no longerunder British rule. Inevitably, changes led toconflict.

Nigeria gained independence from the UK in1960. Seven years later, the country erupted ina civil war which lasted two and a half yearsand was estimated to have cost between amillion and three million lives. StephenWooldridge, who was Inspector of Agenciesfor 12 years from 1981, ran the Agency inApapa, Lagos from 1968 to 1974. He recalledthat a boom in development after the end ofthe war overwhelmed the capacity of theinfrastructure. At the height of the crisis, shipscould wait over 300 days on the roads as therewas nowhere to discharge. All the port sheds,stacking areas and quays were full. Thesolution of the military man put in charge wassimple, but the consequences were not.

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Robert Kiln, a member of the Committee of Lloyd’s


In November 1960, Dodwell and Companyclosed its Manila branch and gave up itsAgency there, saying that trading for foreignfirms had become extremely difficult withrestrictions on foreign exchange and increasinglabour difficulties. Manila had been one ofLloyd’s first Agencies in the Far East.Strachan, Murray & Co, later renamed Ker &Co, was appointed in 1829 when traderestrictions imposed by the Spanish rulingpower were lifted. Ker & Co had completedmore than 100 years of service when thecompany resigned in 1954 and was succeededby Dodwell. Rather than declare a vacancy inthe rather sensitive climate, Lloyd’s turned toSmith Bell & Company which had beenAgents in Cebu since 1877 and Iloilo since1888. Smith Bell became the Manila Agentand in 1970, following a rationalisation, itbecame responsible for the whole Philippinearchipelago. In 1977, Robert Kiln, a memberof the Committee of Lloyd’s and leadingfigure in the reinsurance world, presented acentenary plaque to Smith Bell & Co., whenhe travelled to the Philippines to speak at aninsurance conference.

But despite these closures and vacancies, thenetwork was still strong. Lloyd’s Log fromJuly 1957 gives a flavour of the internationalreach of the Agents. Sir Allan Lockhart ofGladstone, Lyall and Co, Calcutta; Mr Lordof Manica Trading Co, Ltd, Beira; Mr Bish ofthe United Africa Co of Nigeria, Lagos, MrMatthews of George Wills & Co Ltd, Perth –all visited the Lloyd’s building in London inthe space of a month.

Agents and income

In 1870 Lloyd’s had put a guarantee system inplace with certain Agencies. It would get ashare of any of their income over the agreedamount. During the 1920s, this dividing

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An act of God

In the Lloyd’s Log of July 1957, F.G. Hewitt, of Gibson Brothers, Lloyd’s Agents atAsuncion, Paraguay, contributed an anecdote which gives a flavour of the day-to-daybusiness of the Agency. ‘On receiving a request for a survey of cotton fibre damaged byfire, our surveyor left for a far distant and sparsely populated township. After a boat-tripof some fifteen hours and half that time waiting for a train, he ultimately arrived at hisdestination exhausted from the heat and dust. The journey on the narrow gauge railwayhad lasted some eight hours.’

‘The station master and a representative of the claimants accompanied the surveyor onfoot to the place where the fire had occurred. During the conversation the surveyor hadbeen pondering over the disadvantages of having to discuss the extent of damage andrecovery in a place where there was not even an auctioneer, let alone a demand fordamaged cotton fibre. He recalled occasions when discussions on damaged fibre hadcontinued well into the following day. And how could he possibly spend a night at thevillage inn? Would the creeping bloodsucking creatures be bearable as bedmates even to aman accustomed to discomfort? Or would they be ‘on feed’?

‘After a quarter of a mile trudge, the party arrived at the scene of the accident but thesight which met them put new heart into our man. There, with axles, iron framework andiron sheets twisted and charred, stood the remains of a wagon. On either side were heapsof ashes and scattered double hoop iron bands – and the charred remnants of what hadbeen bales of cotton fibre. It was a total loss. There was nothing further to do. ‘In thesilence that followed, our friend, no doubt remembering the dreaded nocturnalbloodsuckers, and the days of protracted negotiation that might have been, raised his armswith a great sigh of relief. ‘Thank God’, he muttered. And underwriters who had to payout on the claim will surely forgive this irresponsible joy.’

because of a shortage of expatriate staff, due tolegislative restrictions. The decision affectedAgencies in Accra, Lagos and Port Harcourt,among others, and 13 sub-agencies. The massresignation caused shock waves in London,according to David Burrell, who served asassistant to the Controller of Agencies.Nevertheless, he said, he managed to fill allhis positions without recourse to the youngman whose application listed his qualificationsas ‘a good knowledge of Morse code and theability to ride a bicycle.’

‘The Port of Apapa,’ Wooldridge explained,‘probably broke the world record for cargoclaims caused, in the main, by thegovernment’s decision to bulldoze unclearedcargo from congested wharves into the sea.’

Agents battled with rapidly changing politicalsituations but they were also faced withdifficult trading conditions. In 1957, theUnited Africa Company announced that itwould relinquish all its Lloyd’s Agencies inwhat was then British West Africa at a swoop


arrangement had been extended to many otherAgencies where the Committee thought itappropriate – although not all Agentsaccepted it without argument. The Lloyd’sshare went towards the cost of inspections, theprinting of forms and stationary for use byAgents, and hardship grants to Agents andtheir dependents.

Between 1946 and 1951, Lloyd’s made variousamendments to the dividing arrangement. In1951 it increased the dividing figures and re-established guaranteed minimum incomepayments in certain places. The Committeewanted payments to come from Agents withlarger incomes, while those with much lessshould at least have their operating costscovered.

Albert Cooper was concerned about the futureof the dividing arrangement. From 1946, asController of Agencies, he travelled to many

parts of the world, including most Europeancountries, the Near East, South America andthe United States. His work was largelycredited with re-establishing the agency systemafter the war. Ron Daly, one of his successors,remembered him as ‘first class, a gooddisciplinarian with a good planning mind.Nothing was too much trouble.’

Writing in the mid-1950s, Cooper stated hisbelief that the value of the agency appointmentin attracting other business was diminishing,while the costs of running the Agencies hadrisen steeply. Agents were under pressure tokeep down their charges to underwriters forsurveys, and this made it awkward for Lloyd’sto ask for a share of an Agent’s total earnings.‘Except where it is linked with a guaranteedminimum, the dividing arrangement is open tothe criticism that Lloyd’s take part of the profitin a good year but contribute nothing when theAgency makes a loss.’

In 1967, the arrangements changed. Agentsand sub-agents were now required to put asmall administrative surcharge on their surveyfees for the benefit of Lloyd’s. The amountwas set at 50p with the decimalisation ofsterling in 1970.

Improving communications

Some technology took a little while topermeate Lloyd’s. In the early part of the 20thcentury, shipping lists were still beinghandwritten and delivered by messengers. Thefirst commercial typewriter came into use in1870 – yet R. T. Chamberlain, head of theintelligence unit, recalled that when he startedat Lloyd’s in 1896, all writing was still done byhand. Years later there was one telephone onthe underwriters’ box for the use of allmembers, but it was ‘so unreliable andexplosive’ that few managed to use itsuccessfully. However, some offices were earlyadopters. The first international telephone callin Gibraltar was made in 1928 from theoffices of long-standing Lloyd’s Agent SmithImossi & Co, to the P&O Company, forwhich it was also agent.

The telegraph had revolutionised thetransmission of maritime information, but itstill required manual transport of a message atsome stage. In the early 1960s, use of the telexbecame widespread, which speeded upcommunications considerably. It allowed directtext communication from one office toanother via a switched network of teleprinters.

Andrew Cooper recalls that when he startedworking with the family firm CooperBrothers, the Agent in Buenos Aires, it wasstill using cable. When telex came in, hewould argue with his uncle that they shouldhave it, but his uncle objected on the groundsthat the cable had to be taken to the post

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A Centenary Plaque (1884-1984) being presented to Smith Imossi & Co Ltd, Lloyd’s Agent Gibraltar by Peter Miller, Chairman of Lloyds 1986-1990


office, so no one would expect an instantanswer and there was time for consideration.

The growth of civil aviation

Thousands of pilots were released frommilitary service after the war, and there weremany war-surplus transport aircraft available.Consequently, civil aviation boomed in thepost-war years. The first flight of the firstcommercial production civilian jet, theBritish de Havilland Comet in 1949, markedthe start of modern passenger aviation.

Despite various efforts, however, aviationnever became a significant source of businessfor the agency network. Early aviation hadbeen dangerous and disorganised, andAgents rarely got involved in aircraftinsurance. But during the last years of theSecond World War, aviation underwritersasked the Committee to make the services ofAgents available in dealing with aircraftlosses. It drafted and issued a new book ofinstructions to Agents and surveyors. In1945, again at the request of underwriters,the Committee set up a special office under aqualified aircraft surveyor as a service to theaviation market.

It was hoped that this might develop into akind of aviation salvage association.However, this never materialised, as therewere too many alternative arrangements forhandling aircraft losses. According to RonDaly, formerly of the Royal Air Force andlater Controller of Agencies, underwriterswould send an adjuster from London if therewas a big loss. However, some Agents diddeal with these losses, as a note of aninspection of the Agency at St Michael’s inthe Portuguese Azores in 1989 shows. Itcommented that Jose Maria Fortuna Raposohad ‘recently been very helpful to Lloyd’s

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April fool in Vienna

B.A. ‘David’ Clifton-Harvey was a man of many talents. Fluent in German, French andSpanish, he also spoke some Swedish and Chinese. He served a shipbuildingapprenticeship and held qualifications as a shipmaster, engineer and naval architect,according to David Burrell, who for many years was assistant to the Controller ofAgencies. In 1973, he was appointed manager at Graham Miller & Co, Lloyd’s Agent inVienna, and attended a course of instruction at Lloyd’s in July.

A few months later Lloyd’s received a casualty telex from Vienna reporting a disaster. Itstated that the yacht Amaroo, owned by a Lloyd’s underwriter and moored at Vienna, hadapparently been fouled by a floating tree trunk and broken adrift. It had then collided withmultiple barge strings and been carried with them downriver to hit a pier of the ReichsBridge. This had collapsed and partially dammed the River Danube. Already swollen bymelting snow, the great river had flooded. Two rescue helicopters had collided overheadand set fire to oil from the barges. The burning oil had damaged property, livestock, cropsand the Aspern Aerodrome. The Schwechat oil refinery was threatened and extensivetransport, communication and power failures followed.

Naturally, such a litany of disaster prompted both the Agency and IntelligenceDepartments to question the report. ‘Knowing Clifton-Harvey, I could hear him talking inthe text and answered ‘Yes, it is from him,’ Burrell said. Neither department noticed thedate. The report was circulated through normal intelligence channels to insurancecompanies and other subscribers. The Salvage Association was instructed. Many withinterests and property in Vienna approached the Foreign Office and the British Consulatefor information and assistance.

Later in the morning a second telex came reporting that floods had lifted debris over thecollapsed bridge - and while Vienna was returning to normal, a 15ft flood bore wassweeping down the Danube towards the Black Sea refineries. On receipt of this messageVienna was asked to confirm the content of both. Back came the reply, ‘Are you aware oftoday’s date?’ It was 1 April 1974.

Much to everyone’s embarrassment, the Intelligence Department then had to cancel theearlier advice. As an April fool, Clifton-Harvey’s plot was a stunning success. As a careermove, it was less so. His employers failed to see the funny side, and Clifton-Harvey’s jokeeventually led to his departure from the Vienna Agency.


aviation department who were involved in acrash of a Boeing 707 on the nearby island ofSanta Maria with a major loss of life.’

Shifting boundaries

Since the beginning, the shape of the agencynetwork has expanded and contractedaccording to politics, conflict, trade andshipping routes. Boundaries also changedaccording to the underwriters’ needs and theavailability of suitable people; the post-waryears were no exception. In 1968, a review ofthe work required of Lloyd’s Agents and sub-agents in the United Kingdom and Irelandconcluded that it would be possible todispense with the services of seven Agents and67 sub-agents, including at the UK ports ofTorquay, Ullapool, Padstow and the ScillyIslands and Wexford in Ireland.

The review found that the title of Lloyd’sAgent or sub-agent carried an implication thatthe firm or individual could provide full-scaleLloyd’s agency services. This includedassistance to ships’ masters in case ofcasualties, and arranging surveys. This

assumption had led to difficulties andcomplaints when the Agent or sub-agent wasnot competent to deal with such matters. Itconcluded that where the work of the Agentor sub-agent was almost exclusively reporting‘infrequent ship movements and even moreinfrequent casualties, a correspondent wouldbe sufficient.’

Seventy-four Agencies and sub-agencies wereallowed to lapse gradually as the firm orindividual holding the appointment resignedor died. A further 25 Agencies in England,Wales and Scotland were disestablished in1974. In December, the agency sub-committeedecided to extend the rationalisation ofagencies to Eire and Northern Ireland.

But in the Communist bloc, the oppositeprocess was taking place. Even before MikhailGorbachev began his programme of perestroika– ‘restructuring’ – in 1985, a number ofCommunist countries wanted to expand theirforeign trade. Invariably, all the representationwould be state controlled, which meant itcould be difficult to get shipping movementsand other intelligence, but Lloyd’s still

believed there was a strong case for extendingthe agency system.

In 1982, it appointed the People’s InsuranceCompany of China (PICC) as Agent inChina and Ingosstrakh in the USSR – bothstate-owned insurance companies. At thatpoint their services were limited to surveysand claims adjustment. With the break-up ofthe Soviet Union, Lloyd’s gradually beganappointing separate Agents in former Sovietstates. In 1993, it named an Agent inKazakhstan and seven others in 1994. Thatyear Agents from Bulgaria and Romaniaattended the inaugural conference of Agentsfrom the Eastern Mediterranean and theBalkans.

Initially, many of the applicants for Lloyd’sAgencies were state agencies and their formerstaff, but gradually private adjusting andsurveying firms developed. Some establishedLloyd’s Agents also took advantage ofopportunities in former Communist countries.Sister companies of Trieste Agent, Samer &Co, are now Lloyd’s Agents in Slovenia,Serbia, Albania, Mongolia and Montenegro.

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Chapter Seven

Havana, Cuba


Our man in Havana

Cuba’s position – about 90 miles from the coast of Florida – means that it has always held strategicimportance for the United States. The story of the Agency in Havana encapsulates the trials andtribulations faced by Agents in the cold war years – buffeted by powerful forces, sometimes facingdanger themselves, but focused on serving Lloyd’s.

Lloyd’s appointed its first agent in Havana in 1816 and over the years it changed hands a numberof times. When Fidel Castro took power in 1959, John Wheeldon had been the Agent for morethan 10 years. In December 1960, Wheeldon left Cuba for a business trip to the United States anddecided it would be unwise for him to return while the Castro regime was in power. He contactedan expatriate Englishman, Basil Hone, to handle the agency work in his absence.

Castro’s policy of nationalising private assets and the US reaction to this nationalisation had drivenhim into the Soviet camp and gave the Soviets a base from which to threaten the United States.Tensions peaked in October 1962 with the Cuban Missile Crisis, a confrontation over thedeployment of nuclear missiles in Cuba that lasted 13 days until Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchevannounced the installations would be dismantled.

Hone was in his late 70s and not particularly experienced. But he did a good job in extremelychallenging circumstances. When the Agency encountered difficulties he negotiated successfullywith the new regime. In May 1965, he appealed for Lloyd’s help over the arrest of Captain RafaelQuintana Castellanos, a retired Cuban master mariner who had been employed by the Agency asinspector of damaged vessels and merchandise who had been accused of espionage.

Hone was convinced that Quintana’s only offence was one of indiscretion and he lobbiedgovernment officials on his behalf.

In November 1965, the authorities became suspicious of the Agency and detained Oscar Ulloa, anemployee of the sub-agent in Guantanamo. Ulloa was released. Quintana, however, was sentencedto 15 years imprisonment, but Hone continued to try to help him.

Hone died in December 1973 and Tomas Simon, a US citizen who had been carrying out the workof the Agency during Hone’s later years, took over the appointment. Fidel Castro remainedPresident of Cuba until 2008.

Leading Lloyd’s underwriter Roy Merrett visited Cuba and met Hone in May 1965. In a shortreport to the Agency Department, he wrote, ‘Mr Hone is an alert and impressive old gentlemen ofabout 80 years, very proud to be a freeman of the City of London, and proud, too, to be Lloyd’sAgent although the business brought by Lloyd’s Agency produces a diminishing financial return.

‘He has other interests which keep the office going. Cheerful and a good conversationalist, MrHone has the charm and courtesy of a bygone age. No doubt he has gone through difficult times inthe changing and revolutionary climate of Cuba, but he remains resilient and optimistic.’

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The shipping industry went through a periodof rapid change during the 1970s.Containerisation reduced the number of cargolosses, although inflation meant values werehigher. Brokers were consolidating into largergroups and directing work to their subsidiariesand associates in their own networks. As aresult, the business of the Agencies began tochange too, and these changes were to be far-reaching.

Agents handled fewer claims for Lloyd’sunderwriters. In 1971, Agencies dealt with62,489 claims valued at $11.7 million. Fouryears later, the number had fallen to 43,272,although the value had risen to $15.6 million.Some gained. A 1979 memo revealed thatincome for individual Agencies varied betweennil to about £500,000.

There were no easy answers to the problemsthrown up by modernisation. Marineunderwriter Gordon Hutton was still warningof the threat to support from the insuranceindustry to Agencies ‘by the many changeswhich are taking place, or have taken place inthe last decade’ when he addressed theinaugural meeting of Agents in the Caribbean

on 10 November 1986. As well as thereduction in damage claims as a result ofcontainerisation and the development ofthrough transport, he also cited the power ofthe brokers to appoint their own surveyors andarrange settlements from their own overseasoffices, and the consolidation andconcentration of cargo underwriters.

Yet as the Agencies handled fewer claims,Lloyd’s expanded. In 1971, the market’s netpremium income was £524.5 million. Fouryears later it had grown to £839 million. Thatsame period saw an increase in the number ofwealthy individuals known as Names, whoprovided the capital for underwriting – from6,020 in 1971 to 7,710 in 1975.

Clearly, the Agency system needed to movewith the times. So on 4 February 1976, theCommittee of Lloyd’s created a working partyto consider fundamental questions about itsfuture. Was there still a need for it at all? If so,how efficient was the existing system in lightof the market’s needs?

The working party reported seven monthslater that the Agencies should remain – but

‘Something that mystifiedoutsiders’: The Agency systemunder scrutiny

Tide changing as new century dawns

Headline of feature on the future of Agency system, Lloyd’s List, 31

January 1998

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the network needed to be modernised andrationalised. To this end, it made 50recommendations aimed at improving theAgency system. These included replacing theexisting agency sub-committee with anAgency Committee with sufficient decision-making power to decide when subjectsshould be referred to the Committee ofLloyd’s.

It was made up of members of theCommittee of Lloyd’s, market associationsand the publishing arm of the Corporation,Lloyd’s of London Press (LLP) – but norepresentatives from outside the market. Itplayed a major role in the management ofthe network and the Agency Departmentuntil 1993, when the system of marketgovernance was reorganised. Today, theAgency Department comes within thePerformance Management Directorate ofLloyd’s.

Changes at Lloyd’s

The Agencies were not the only bodiesunder scrutiny. Lloyd’s itself was also goingthrough a period of fundamental change. Inthe 1970s, the UK government wasresponsible for the regulation of insurancecompanies. However, Lloyd’s looked after itsown affairs and submitted its financialreturns once a year to the Department ofTrade and Industry.

In 1979, Lloyd’s recognised that it did nothave sufficient regulatory powers toeffectively govern the Lloyd’s market so SirHenry Fisher, a former High Court judge,was asked to head a working party to inquireinto self-regulation in the market. Publishedin 1980, the Fisher Report led to the firstmajor revision of the market’s governancesince 1871, the Lloyd’s Act of 1982. But as

John Kooyman, Controller of Agencies from1981 to 1992, said later, ‘The Fisher Reportdidn’t really touch the agency system. Itseemed to be something that mystifiedoutsiders.’

The 1982 Act confirmed Lloyd’s power ofself-regulation. The Committee of Lloyd’s wasreplaced by the Council of Lloyd’s, which hada much broader base of membership. The firstchief executive was appointed. The newregime was soon tested by another wave ofscandal. But, as Hutton told the inauguralregional meeting of Agents in the Far East inOctober 1985, not only had all genuine claimsbeen met but Lloyd’s had continued to tradeprofitably.

A feel for the firm: modern Agencyinspections

As international travel became easier,inspectors could reach more agencies morequickly. Major Lindsay’s successors were lesslikely to have to endure jungle hikes andboat journeys, but they could still faceconsiderable risk. In 1979, Inspector ofAgencies Gordon Lumsdaine was trapped inLa Paz for five days, following seriousdisturbances after the overthrow of thepresident of Bolivia. He was eventuallyevacuated to Lima with 300 other foreigners,in an airlift organised by the variousembassies. Undaunted, he then flew on toCaracas to complete his official tour.

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John Kooyman (centre), Controller of Agencies 1981-1992, Brian Smith (left), Manager – Settlement of Claims Abroadand Gordon Lumsdaine (right), Inspector of Agencies


Andrew Cross, former master mariner andInspector of Agencies from 2000-2007,managed to escape getting caught in troublespots, even though inspections involved himvisiting various countries considered unstableat the time. Instead, he says, one of the highpoints of his job was that he got to visit placesthat he would never otherwise have seen, inthe company of local people with whom heshared interests.

His inspections were based on the principlethat first impressions count. Are the offices ina good location? Is the building wellmaintained? Does the office look smart? Next,he would look more closely at the competenceof the staff. Were they computer literate?Training could provide skills if they werelacking, but honesty was absolutely critical.Anyone seen to be dishonest was removed.But ultimately, he said, it came down to a ‘feel’for the firm.

When he was Controller of Agencies, JohnKooyman wanted all Agents to be inspected atleast once in 10 years. By 1989, he reported

that the number of Agencies which had notbeen seen for more than 15 years or neverinspected at all had fallen from 161 (40percent) in 1980 to 44 (11 percent). In fiveyears, 183 Agencies had been visited.

Reconstruction and renewal

The early 1990s saw more turmoil for Lloyd’s.Cumulative exposure to US liability claims,especially for asbestos-related illnesses andsevere claims from a series of catastrophicevents led to a financial crisis in the market.Corporation departments were under greatpressure to reduce costs. There was real fearfor the future of the 300-year-old market.

The Agency Committee was conducting awide ranging debate about the future structureof the Agency Department. This covered theperceived lack of use of the system by themarket, the relationship with the publishingsubsidiary Lloyd’s of London Press (LLP) andthe cost to the market of operating thedepartment. In discussions in 1992, membersof the Committee argued that the market was

probably unaware of the comparatively lowadministrative costs of the department whichhad to be funded. Settlement of claims abroadcosts were recovered in full from the marinemarket. The salvage arbitration branch andcertificates office were wholly self-financing.

The Agencies, it would seem, were worth it. A1992 report from LLP said that therelationships Agents had built up with localcontacts – and its own correspondents inplaces where there was no Agent – accountedfor 80-90 percent of the annual total of 2.5million shipping movements received at LLPand some 45 percent of the 1,600 marinecasualty advices processed annually. ‘Lloyd’shas, through its unique agency network, cometo be acknowledged as the world centre forshipping and maritime intelligence and isundoubtedly foremost in this field of activity.Without the agency system this positionwould be vulnerable and the possibility wouldexist that Lloyd’s could no longer sustain thispredominant role,’ it reported.

That same year, a working party put forward a

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Right: Partners of Edward Cooper & Son, 1923 (Lloyd’s Agent Buenos Aires)


new governance structure. In time, this sawthe abolition of many of the existingcommittees and sub-committees of theCommittee of Lloyd’s, including the AgencyCommittee. Their functions were transferredto new market and regulatory boards.

In 1996, Lloyd’s completed Reconstruction &Renewal. This complex programme allowedthe market to separate past losses from futurebusiness by reinsuring all liabilities for the1992 year of account and earlier. In 1994, forthe first time in Lloyd’s history, it allowed theadmission of corporate capital.

Since then, Lloyd’s has rebuilt its reputation

and a very profitable business. But it hasemerged as a more corporate entity. Corporatemembers now provide 87 percent of its capital.The domination of the market by syndicatesrun by large insurance groups is probablypartly responsible for the continuingfrustrations about the fall in income fromsurvey work coming from Lloyd’s for Agents.

Bev Matson, of former Lloyd’s AgencyMatthews, Matson and Kelley, commented inLloyd’s List on 31 January 1998 that he didnot understand why Lloyd’s underwriters didnot regard the Agents as a first port of call formore claims handling. He explained: ‘We arefinding here in the United States, and our

rivals McLarens Toplis, too, that the Lloyd’sclaims departments are passing assignments towherever and whoever they think appropriate,and not necessarily to Lloyd’s Agents.’

As Kooyman wrote with some frustration in aspecial report in Lloyd’s List: ‘Another longstanding misconception which is extremelydifficult to correct is that Lloyd’s Agents areonly concerned and only wish to be concernedwith marine matters. He continued: ‘SomeAgents are closely involved in non-marinematters and keen to expand their activities.’

Some Agents have done so, very successfully.Andrew Cooper and his brother David of

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Chapter Eight

Cooper Brothers, the Buenos Aires Agency,are the fourth generation of the familymanaging the company. The family’s history asLloyd’s Agents dates from 1896 when EdwardCooper was appointed in Montevideo. Four ofhis sons founded Edward Cooper & Sons inBuenos Aires in 1911, which became theAgents there in 1922 and continues under thename Cooper Brothers. Andrew Cooper told a1995 regional meeting that his firm had takena very positive attitude toward marketing andgone outside traditional hull and cargo work.It dealt with business from aviation, energyand banking markets locally. Following theprivatisation of the Argentine RailwayCompany, it won the contract to surveymaterial damage to rolling stock.

But trading conditions remained demanding.The Salvage Association was put up for sale,and in March 2001 it was acquired by theengineering and technology consulting group,British Marine Technology (BMT). TheLiverpool & Glasgow Salvage Association,which has been the Lloyd’s Agent for

Liverpool since 1891, however, remains a not-for-profit business operating for the benefit ofthe marine and insurance industries. Itacquired Perfect Lambert & Co in 2000 andnow trades as LGSA Marine.

‘Everything that floats’: Thecommunications revolution

John Kooyman saw his first fax while visitingthe office of Cornes, the Agent in Yokohama,and inward faxes on shiny thermal paperbegan to appear in Agency Department filesin the early 1980s. By 1988, many Agentswere sending shipping movements by faxrather than telex to LLP, the company whichnow handled the collation and publication ofLloyd’s intelligence.

This had advantages in speed and ease ofcommunication, but at least in the early daysit had its drawbacks. Agents at the Italy, Maltaand Yugoslavia group meeting that year werereminded of the tendency of faxes on thermalpaper to fade away, leaving only a blank sheet,

so they were told to photocopy importantdocuments for their files.

Four years later, enhancements to computersenabled LLP to record the movements ofmore vessels than ever, according to itsintelligence manager Keith Bickmore. Thisresulted in Agents needing to ensure theyincluded callings by all merchant vessels,irrespective of flag or voyage in their advices.‘We have not yet reached the stage of askingour Agents to report ‘everything that floats’but we may not be far short of that stage,’Bickmore told regional meetings of Agentsheld in 1992.

LLP was continuing to investigate methods ofdirect information capture and had conductedtrials of a system designed specifically for thepurpose, the Lloyd’s Ports and Harbor Link,with Agents in a number of large ports.

Communications were easier in some parts ofthe world than others. In June 1990, theAgency Department noted difficulties

Right: Lloyd’s Medal for Saving Life at Sea


Chapter Eight

Awards to Agents

On a stormy February night in 1861, JohnWalsh, the Lloyd’s Agent at Dublin from1842 until 1881, went to the aid of the brigNeptune battling a gale in the Irish Sea.The Neptune was one of 15 vessels lost offDun Leoghaire (then Kingstown) in thestorm. The captain, five of the crew ofHMS Ajax and nine others died in theattempt to rescue the crew of the Neptuneand Walsh was injured. Only one survivorreached the shore and Walsh became thefirst recipient of the Lloyd’s Medal forSaving Life at Sea, an exceptional awardfor acts of bravery and meritorious serviceinstituted in 1836.

The next award was in 1894 to HenryCooke, the Lloyd’s Agent in Archangelfrom 1890 to 1895. It commemorated hisextraordinary exertions to save the life of aman in the White Sea. Bjarne Ellefsenearned the third medal for his part in therescue of the crew of the steamer Trymwhich foundered in the North Sea on 19January 1937. He was third officer of theNorwegian vessel Venus. Although not anAgent at the time, his father was Agent atHammerfest from 1913 until 1942. BjarneEllefsen held the appointment from 1948 to 1961.

In 1920, Lloyd’s awarded a silver medal for service to Henry Burnett, the sub-agent at Maldonado, Uruguay, from 1880 to 1927. Havingsettled in Maldonado in 1864, Burnett acted unofficially for a decade before his appointment as sub-agent, a position he held until his deathin 1927 at the age of 82.

George Sahyouni ran the Agency for Catoni as general manager during the years of turmoil in Lebanon, when civil war tore the countryapart. After a visit to Beirut in 1992, Kooyman described him as ‘a quite remarkable man who has given invaluable assistance to bothinsurers and commercial organisations in combating fraud in the Lebanon.’ He was appointed Agent as G. Sahyouni & Co, in 1988 whenCatoni withdrew. In 1986, the Chairman of Lloyd’s presented him with a silver salver.


contacting Marine Technical Services(MTS) the Agency at Alexandria. Thephone system in Alexandria was‘notoriously unreliable’ and the telex systemconstantly broke down. MTS had appliedfor a new telex machine several monthspreviously but doubted it would arrive for awhile. The firm had acquired a fax machinebut couldn’t get a dedicated telephone line,so in the meantime would switch the solephone line to fax at 13.00 every day.

Reminders from LLP to Agents on sendingintelligence were a continuing theme in theregional meetings. LLP representativesstressed how important casualtyinformation was to underwriters. Not onlydid it give warning of a possible claim but itwas also an opportunity to protect theirinterests by instructing the SalvageAssociation. Early notification also servedaround 200 salvage companies who had astanding arrangement with LLP. It enabledthem to get rapid assistance to a strickenvessel and, again, protect underwriters’interests.

Agents were also expected to reportaccidents involving off-shore drilling rigsand platforms, vessels detained or arrested(which could be the first indication that ashipowner was in financial trouble),berthing delays and port congestion, strikesand any other events holding up cargoes toand from the port, major fires and aviationcasualties. Information on new portdevelopments, vessels laid up or underrepair, new launchings and changes of nameand ownership, and substantial jury awardsinvolving industrial or other accidents wereless important but still desirable. Thesecould go by air mail. LLP met all telex, faxand postal expenses for reporting butexpected Agents to meet anything over and

Chapter Eight


above such as clerical costs. It did accept thatwhen Agents contributed toward publicationssuch as Ports of the World the research requiredjustified a charge.

The internet arrives

When the Agencies began, simplecommunication by letter took weeks or evenmonths. By 1996, half of vessel movementswere reaching LLP by email and only tenpercent by post. Presumably the rest continuedby telex and fax. As William Fielding ofLloyd’s Agency in Genoa explained at aregional meeting, getting computers tocommunicate directly remained a problem,‘although they had become as ordinary as thetypewriter, the telephone or the telex.’ SomeAgents attending the meeting said they hadbegun using word processors, but theircomputers were mainly for accounts andstatistics.

Two years later, around 40 to 50 percent ofAgencies were using email. It rapidly becamethe only acceptable method ofcommunication. Sonja Fink, Controller ofAgencies from 2000 to 2007, warned Agentsthat they might be forced to resign if theiroffice wasn’t equipped with email within areasonable period, unless it simply wasn’tavailable in their country. The AgencyDepartment made widespread adoption oftechnology, including electronic insurance

documentation and a central Agency websitewith a skills database, a key policy.

The revolution that is the internet, too, waswaiting in the wings. Its most successfulprecursor was France’s Minitel, a dumbterminal that, as early as 1981, gave accessthrough the telephone to an electronictelephone directory and other databases. In hisinspection of the Marseilles Agency, Gellatly,Hankey & Cie in May 1986, Kooymanquestioned Captain Keith Morland aboutMinitel as a possible source of shippingmovement and casualty information. He saidthat a firm of P&I representatives in the porthad found the Minitel ‘a great asset.’ But in1990, Tim Berners-Lee wrote the WorldwideWeb browser and the internet was born.

The Agency Department launched its website,www.lloydsagency.com, in 2002. Today, ofcourse, the website is a crucial element in thedepartment’s communications. It providescontact details for all Agents within thenetwork and a database of surveying skillsavailable at each location.

Moving forward through training

As Controller of Agencies in the 1950s,Albert Cooper believed in training and inencouraging what would now be called bestpractice. The Agency Department’s system oftutoring visiting Agents began around 1951,

when the Inspector of Agencies, LeslieGibson, became part of the office staff. Hisavailability made it possible for Cooper tobegin the work he had long wanted but hadlacked the resources, to do. The first syllabuscovered all phases of agency work and allAgents and their staff were invited to Londonto take the two week course. By 1956, over200 representatives had done so. The report ofthe 1976 agency system working partycommented on the benefits of bringing staffinto London from Agencies for trainingcourses at Lloyd’s and recommended this beencouraged.

Cooper also canvassed Agents and Londonsurveyors on their practical experience ofsurveying, types of damage, common risks fordifferent commodities and the treatment ofdamaged goods. The result was the firstedition of the Lloyd’s Survey Handbook,published in 1952. The Survey Handbookcontinued into seven editions and over theyears the contents expanded to 400 pages.

The handbook had its origins, Cooper wrotein his preface, based on the idea that if peopleinvolved in the examination of damaged goodscould exchange their experiences, it wouldbenefit all and ‘enhance the value of Lloyd’sAgents’ survey reports generally.’ No doubt,Cooper would have been delighted by thehuge potential of new technology to enhancethe work of the Agencies in the new century.

Chapter Eight

Left: The current Lloyd’s building


Coming together: Agents’ meetings

Until the early 1970s, there were noorganised, regular meetings between Agents.It took the Rotterdam Agent John Hudig &Son, a firm with a long and proud history ofassociation with Lloyd’s, to realise the valueof bringing Agents in their region together.So in 1973, Willem Veder at John Hudig &Son and his counterpart at Amsterdam,Agent Alfred Schröder organised the firstannual meeting of Agents in the Hamburg-Antwerp area.

At first the meetings were for Agents only.Ron Daly as Controller of Agencies firstattended five years later in 1978. Theregional meetings of Agents were sosuccessful that they have become a regularand important feature of the agency networkcalendar, when senior members of theAgency Department and Agents get tospend time together and share concerns, tipsand best practice.

At the inaugural group meeting of Agentsfrom the Middle East and North Africa, inMarch 1995 in Dubai, for example, Agentsgave an overview of the situation in eachcountry. George Sahyouni said that in theLebanon, ‘regular, long-established reputableinspection companies’ had suffered a sharp

decrease in business from ‘unscrupulous peoplewho found a way to accommodate the wishes oftheir principals on whatever terms the lattermay impose as a result of ferocious competitioncoupled with recession.’ On many occasionsinsurers were the victims, said Sahyouni. ‘Theyend up paying the bill.’

In February 1990, Durban managing directorJohnny Kee sent a newsletter to the AgencyDepartment after Nelson Mandela was releasedfrom prison. ‘Things are starting to move sorapidly in this country, we will probably need tosend a newsletter once a week to keep pace.’ Asholder of the agency appointment for Durban,Johannesburg and Cape Town for over acentury, Rennie Murray was well placed to givean overview of the extraordinary developmentswhen it hosted the landmark conference ofAgents from Southern Africa in Cape Town inMarch 1995, the year after the country’s firstegalitarian election.

In May 2011 in excess of 175 Agents and asmany as 200 additional attendees from theLondon Market participated in the bi-centenaryconference.

Instant messages

New technology has meant that in the last fewyears, a lot of the routine work of Lloyd’s

Things move rapidly:The Agency network today

“It has come a long way from 1811,when the best intelligence wassupplied by fast sailing packet boats,gallopers and semaphore...”

Lloyd’s List (special report onLloyd’s Agencies), April 2002

Chapter Nine


Chapter Nine

Sailing ship Talisman


Agents in reporting shipping lists and evencasualties has diminished. In 2005, a newtechnology for monitoring the positions ofships was born when the first automaticidentification system (AIS) station wasinstalled at the premises of the then Lloyd’sAgent at Dover, George Hammond, in April2005. This system is a shipboard transponderthat can monitor ships from other ships andfrom shore based stations. Almost all vesselsof 300 gross tons and upwards are now fittedwith a transmitter. These ships continuallytransmit their identity, position, course, speedand other relevant data via dedicated VHFfrequencies. The system enables Lloyd’s ListIntelligence to display ‘live’ positions forvessels as far as 30-50 miles out at sea.

Today, there is a global network of 900 AISland base stations from which over 100million messages are received daily. Thisenables the regular and timely tracking of120,000 active vessels. In 2010, Lloyd’s ListIntelligence started to receive daily AISsatellite data reports, which allows for trackingof vessels in deep sea ocean transit, hundredsof miles from shore. Of course, the system stillhas limitations. AIS stations can become

‘inactive’, generally because of local powerfailures or surges, which necessitates re-booting the system. Ships not wanting to betracked can turn off the tracking system andsail undetected. The standardised shipping listreports provided by Lloyd’s Agents still ensurethat the market gets the most comprehensiveinformation possible.

Informa is the successor to LLP as publisherof Lloyd’s List and Lloyd’s Loading List. Itsrelationship with coast guards and rescueservices around the world, combined with thespread of email, reduces its reliance on thereports of Lloyd’s Agents. However, Agentsstill provide initial reports of serious casualties,as well as updates and the specific type ofinformation that underwriters require once theimmediate danger is over. Even today, when avast amount of information about disasters isavailable very quickly over the internet,Lloyd’s Agents can give underwriters thespecific information they need to supplementmore general news reports. For example, theLloyd’s Agent in Brisbane, MYI Freemans,provided the market with regular situationreports on the floods in Queensland inJanuary 2011 and Typhoon Yasi in February.

Similarly the Lloyd’s Agent in Yokohama,Cornes & Co, provided logistical and maritimecasualty information to the market within daysof the devastating Earthquake and subsequentTsunami in March 2011.

Modern inspections

In 2000, Lloyd’s still had about 400 Agents. Bythe time Andrew Cross retired in 2007, therewere 340, as Agencies and districtsconsolidated. At that point, only about 20Agents across the world had not received a visitfrom him or someone else from thedepartment. After Cross’ retirement, KarenBizon, Controller of Agencies 2007-2011 chosetwo experienced marine services professionals,Luc Verdonck, managing director of a Lloyd’sAgent, and Jannes de Vries, previouslymanaging director of another Agent, to visitAgencies as required. This considerablyincreased the volume of inspections that couldnow take place.

A running programme of regular inspectionsensures that Agents continue to meet Lloyd’sstandards. Inspections also take place on an adhoc basis if there are problems. If Lloyd’sreceives more than one complaint or one seriouscomplaint about an Agent, the inspectorsconduct an audit. Not only do they inspect theAgent concerned, but schedule permitting theyalso take the opportunity to meet and assess allmarine service providers in the region.

The goal now is for all Agents to be inspectedwithin 5 years and many of the more activeAgents are now visited every 3 or 4 years.

Training today

Training and the increased professionalism ofthe network have gone hand in hand. Cross wasin no doubt that the inspections improved the

Chapter Nine

Below: Damage at the port of Kamaishi, Japan, following the earthquake and tsunami – May 2011 (Photograph provided by Cornes & Co Ltd, Lloyd’s Agent Kobe & Yokohama)


Chapter Nine

offered to mentor and train the scholarshipcandidates from other agencies in othercountries.

The final initiative of the 20th century,delivered in the 21st, has been a programmeof formal training and certification of Lloyd’sAgents. Today, all Lloyd’s Agencies must havestaff qualified at stages one and two of thesurveying training programme. Those withclaims settling status, or who are involved inthe adjustment or settlement of claims, mustalso have staff qualified at the recentlydeveloped stage three. This trains and testsAgents on a deeper level of knowledge ofmarine insurance clauses and principles, claimsadjustment, general average and salvage andthird-party recoveries. The training iscompulsory and the few agencies which haverefused to comply with the department’straining requirements have lost theirappointment.

The Agency Department now holds fourtraining sessions a year in different parts ofthe world attended by up to 35 Agents fromthe region. The department pays all costsassociated with one person per Agency in theregion attending the training sessions. Thesesessions supplement Agents’ private study. TheAgents welcome this training and thedepartment is regularly asked to provide ad hoctraining sessions in Agents’ offices at theirexpense and also in London.

Keeping up standards

Agents have always been required to act withappropriate consideration and professionalismat all times. Today, all Lloyd’s Agents sign anannual contract with Lloyd’s to this effect.They agree to stringent service standardswhich apply to all the maritime services thatthey conduct. These standards set outguidelines for efficient communication andprocedures.

Under Bizon in 2008, a survey and claimsmanagement team was established, composedof experienced marine claims handlingprofessionals, to support the Agents andclients of the network. The team’s aim issimple: to ensure that clients receive aconsistently high service from any Lloyd’sAgent. It reviews and delivers thedepartment’s compulsory training anddevelopment programme and is responsiblefor Agency inspections.

The team can also coordinate instructionsand act as an intermediary between the clientand the Lloyd’s Agent, if the client wishes.This free service makes contact betweenclients and Agents easier. It also helps clientsand Agents to untangle problems that canoccur in the long supply chains that still existin maritime transport.

quality of the network – partly by weeding outweak Agents, but largely through the trainingand understanding of Lloyd’s that he and hiscolleagues were able to offer.

Fink felt that helping maintain high standardsamong the Agents would encourageunderwriters to give them work. This meantthat at least one person in every Lloyd’sAgency was required to undergo anexamination set by the Agency department oncargo surveying proficiency, and many Agentshad numerous surveyors pass the exam.

In 2006, the department launched stage twoof the training and examination programmewith specific training subjects such ascontainerisation and the transportation ofhazardous cargoes. It also provided ascholarship scheme to pay for surveyors incountries where he or she would not be able toattain the skills locally. Various Lloyd’s Agents

The vessel RENA aground off Tauranga, New Zealand (Image provided by Jacob Hogendorp of Global Savage Consultancy Pte Ltd)


Chapter Nine

Right: The current Lloyd’s building

Striving for excellence remains a constantgoal. The Agency Department’s objectiveregarding Lloyd’s Agents is simple: ‘Our aimis to have as Lloyd’s Agents the very bestmarine service providers available in theregions in which they operate and we willchange appointments if appropriate in thatendeavour.’

This objective has been rigorously enforcedover recent years, there having been in excessof 100 Agency appointment changes toensure the network meets the challenges ofthe next 200 years.

A bright future

Two hundred years after Joseph Marryat’scommittee first decided to put in place that‘regular and universal system of intelligence’,the Agency network consists of 300 Agentsand a similar number of sub-agents. Theyare located in 175 countries and in every

major port and commercial centre around theworld.

‘The birth of the agency system was, in fact,one of the first truly global organisations to beassociated with world shipping,’ wrote veteranshipping commentator Michael Grey in theLloyd’s List special report on Lloyd’s Agenciesin April 2002.

‘The Lloyd’s Agency network has shown overthe years its extraordinary ability to adapt tochanged circumstances, to embrace newtechnology and to provide the underwritingcommunity with unique sensors across theworld. It has proven to be sensitive to thedemands of a changed insurance climate, in aworld of fierce competition where customersdemand value for money and peakresponsiveness.

‘It has come a long way from 1811, when thebest intelligence was supplied by fast sailing

packet boats, gallopers and semaphore, to aworld where all Lloyd’s Agents can today becontacted at the click of a button andcommunication is instantaneous. But thesame principles of integrity, commercialacumen and local intelligence throughout theglobal village remain.’

Much has changed since the Deal boatmen’scunning forced Lloyd’s to appoint its first‘eyes and ears’. Agencies are no longer loneadventurers like Sir Wilfred Grenfell, orenthusiastic expatriates like Wilfred Hone.They are highly professional businesses.They handle everything from marinesurveying to aviation, energy, vehicleinspections, salvage sales and travel. Theydeal with claims for automobiles, agriculturalmachinery, property, business interruption,construction and financial institutions.Whatever the future may bring, they are wellequipped to deal with it. This is the world ofthe Agents today.


Chapter Nine


Bibliography

Minutes of the Committee of Lloyd’s, internal archives and personal accounts form the basis of most of this history of the Lloyd’sagency network. The following have also been useful:

Buckley, Michael, The Origins of Lloyd’s Form, Waltons & Morse

Chamberlain, R. T., History of the Lloyd’s Intelligence Unit, 1942, manuscript

Clayton, G., British Insurance, Elek Books, 1971, London

Cooper, A.W., Lloyd’s Agency System, its Institution and Development, undated but post 1956, manuscript

Davison, Ian Hay, A View of the Room, Lloyd’s Change and Disclosure, Weidenfield and Nicholson, 1987

Fisher Working Party, Self-Regulation at Lloyd’s, Lloyd’s, 1980

Flower, Raymond and Wynn Jones, Michael, Lloyd’s of London, an Illustrated History, David & Charles, 1974

Fraser, Flora, Beloved Emma, John Murray, 1986

Gibb, D.E.W., Lloyd’s of London, a Study in Individualism, Macmillian and Co., 1957

Harding, Vanessa and Metcalf, Priscilla, Lloyd’s at Home, Corporation of Lloyds/Lloyd’s of London Press, 1986

Hodgson, Godfrey, Lloyd’s of London a Reputation at Risk, Penguin, 1986

Kemp, Peter, The History of Ships, Little, Brown and Company, 2000

Lloyd’s List, 250th anniversary supplement, Lloyd’s of London Press, 1984

Maclay, Edgar Stanton, A History of American Privateers, 1899

Martin, Frederick, The History of Lloyd’s and of Marine Insurance in Great Britain, Macmillan and Co., 1876

Ravina, Agustin Guimerá, La Casa Hamilton, 1989

Raynes, Harold, A History of British Insurance, Sir Isaac Pitman & Sons, 1964 ed.

Simper, Robert, Britain’s Maritime Heritage, David & Charles, 1982

Tindall, George Brown with David E. Shi, America: A Narrative History, 1992

Watson, Nigel, Time and Tide Wait for No Man, George Hammond plc 1767-1992

Weightman, Gavin, Signor Marconi’s Magic Box, HarperCollins, 2003

Williamson, James, The English Channel, a history, Readers Union Collins, 1961

Wright, Charles and Fayle, Ernest, A History of Lloyd’s, Corporation of Lloyd’s/Macmillan and Co, 1928

Bibliography


Controllers of Agencies

Walter Boxford, M.B.E. 1919-1941

George Chambers 1941-1945

Albert William Cooper 1945-1956

Major Walter William Pipe 1956-1962

Eric Tulloch, M.B.E. 1962-1972

Ron Daly 1972-1981

John Kooyman 1981-1992

Howard Hughes 1993-1998

Mike Stott 1998-2000

Sonja Fink 2000-2007

Karen Bizon 2007-2011

Mark Patterson 2011-present

Controllers of Agencies


Current Lloyd’s Agents that have provided over 100 years of service

Current Lloyd’s Agents that have provided over 100 years of service

1818 Interlloyd Averij BV, Rotterdam, Netherlands1839 VB Comisarios de Averias SA, Santa Cruz de Tenerife,

Canary Islands1849 Sandilands Claims & Settlements Sdn Bhd,

Penang, Malaysia1849 Ireland Fraser & Co Ltd, Mauritius 1862 Jonas Browne & Hubbard (Grenada) Ltd, Grenada 1863 Peirce Leslie Surveyors and Assessors Ltd, Kochi

(Cochin), India1864 G & J MacPherson Soc Ltda, Cadiz, Spain1866 Minvielle & Chastanet Ltd, St. Lucia 1866 Mackinnon Mackenzie & Co of Pakistan (Pvt) Ltd,

Karachi, Pakistan1868 Cornes & Co Ltd, Yokohama, Japan1869 Falkland Islands Co Ltd, Stanley, Falkland Islands1872 Southern Marine Consult AS, Kristiansand, Norway1873 James Rawes – Peritagens, Lda, Lisbon, Portugal1875 Bachke & Co A/S, Trondheim, Norway1875 Wilson Surveyors and Adjusters Pvt Ltd,

Chennai, India1876 Rennie Murray & Co (Pty) Ltd, Cape Town,

South Africa1876 Aitken Spence plc, Colombo, Sri Lanka1877 MacAndrews SA, Barcelona, Spain1877 Smith Bell Corporation, Manila, Philippines1878 Agencia de Navegacao Blandy Ltda, Madeira, Portugal1879 James Rawes – Peritagens, Lda, Oporto, Portugal1880 George W Bennett-Bryson Company Ltd, Antigua

and Barbuda1883 OF Gollcher & Sons Ltd, Malta 1884 Smith Imossi & Co Ltd, Gibraltar

1887 Guyana National Shipping Corporation Ltd,Georgetown, Guyana

1889 Arabian Establishment for Trade & Shipping Ltd,Jeddah, Saudi Arabia

1890 Rennie Murray & Co (Pty) Ltd, Durban, South Africa1891 LGSA Marine Ltd, Liverpool, United Kingdom1891 Reck & Co GmbH, Bremen, Germany1893 Oy Lars Krogius Ab, Helsinki, Finland1894 Delisle Walwyn & Co Ltd, St. Kitts and Nevis 1894 Chase Leavitt & Co, Portland (ME), United States

of America1896 Mullock & Sons (Shipbrokers) Ltd, Limerick, Ireland1896 VB Comisarios de Averias SA, Las Palmas de Gran

Canaria, Canary Islands1896 Carpenters Shipping, Suva, Fiji1897 Vitsan Mumessillik ve Musavirlik AS, Istanbul, Turkey1898 Manica Freight Services (Moçambique) SARL, Beira,

Mozambique1899 Belize Estate Co Ltd, Belize City, Belize1900 Eurobaltic ApS, Aarhus, Denmark1905 Bernard & Bernard Ltd, Blantyre, Malawi1905 Freisenbruch-Meyer Group, Bermuda1905 Cornes & Co Ltd, Kobe, Japan1906 Manica Freight Services (Mozambique) SA, Maputo,

Mozambique1906 MacAndrews SA, Valencia, Spain1909 Coreas Hazells Inc, St. Vincent and the Grenadines1910 Oy Wikestrom & Krogius Ab, Turku, Finland