LLOYDS OF LONDON

North Canterbury Gazette, Volume 7, Issue 58, 23 November 1937, Page 6

LLOYDS OF LONDON

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WHAT HAS GONE BEFORE

An orphaned boy, Jonathan Blake, slavey in a Norfolk groggery operated by a Widow Blake, in the year 1770, and his pal, Horatio Nelson, discover a plot to steal a cargo of gold and defraud the insurers, Lloyd of London. So Jonathan informs John Angerstein, of the Lloyds syndicate, and saves him from being defrauded. Grateful, Angerstein takes the boy into his home, and later sends him to Eton, planning to take him into the insurance syndicate when he has graduated.

Chapter Six

JONATHAN graduated from Eton with honours, the highest in his

class. Consequently he won a scholarship to Cambridge University. John Angerstein's pride in him knew no bounds. "Watson," he said to his chief clerk, "there's good blood in that lad. No common Cockney's son, I'll warrant. That sort of breeding doesn't show in his face. Go down to Burnham-Thorpe in Norfolk and interview an old harridan there named Blake. She is the proprietor of a groggery. Ascertain the antecedents of. this boy. I'm curious."

In about two weeks Watson returned. "The old woman's dead," he reported, "but I found neighbours who remembered the boy and through them I ascertained that the Blake woman got him from the local work-house — St. Swithin's. I interviewed the head of the work-house, who looked up his records and discovered that a boy named Jonathan Greenhill had been given to one Amanda Blake, of the address where her groggery used to stand. Both parents died —mother when the boy was born and the father when the lad was four years old. Father was a naval officer, killed in action—named Alan Greenhill. So I came back to London and looked up Alan Greenhill in the Admiralty. Senior lieutenant in His Majesty's navy, commanded the twenty-four gun sloop-o'-Avar Gloriana, sunk by a Spanish frigate off the Holland coast, but not until the Gloriana had fought off and put out of action two thirty-six gun Spanish frigates. Looked up his marriage in the Registrar's office in London and discovered he married the Honourable Agatha Langhorne, the youngest daughter of the Baron of Langhorne. Greenhill was the youngest son of an admiral—no money, nothing but his pay, usual navy prospects. The marriage was regarded as a mesalliance and Langhorne cast his daughter off. So much I learned from the man who was formerly coachman to the Baron of Langhorne, who has been dead some years. The title died with him. It was not hereditary. Langhorne's estate was heavily encumbered and was sold for the benefit of his creditors."

John Angerstein smiled sagely. "Good sound stock," he murmured. "The sort that never lets England down—the sort that never lets the sun down—on English soil! Well, he'll be glad to know his ancestry, but he's been Jonathan Blake so long I daresay nothing would be gained by adopting his real name at this late delate."

So Jonathan Dlako went to Cambridge for four years and emerged, to all outward appearanees a charming, cultured, highly educated gentleman, even if ho had sprung from a middleclass family. His French was perfect, but John Angerstein sent him to the Sorbonne to remove from it a tendency to speak it at times with an accent which, though faint, betrayed his English birth and raising. At the Sorbonne he also studied naval architecture, a knowledge of which would, he thought, come in handy when appraising the seaworthiness of ships preparatory to insuring them. For Lloyd's was now, in the great protection of its risks, employing marine surveyors to examine all ships upon which insurance had been applied for. Such ships were given a rating, changed as rating the insurance rato of premium was based.

Lloyd's, in the meantime, had removed to the Royal Exchange, a splendid Georgian building, subsequently destroyed by fire. And it was to Angerstein, at the Royal Exchange, that Jonathan reported upon his return from France. He was now twenty-six years old; thirteen years had passed since first he had set eyes on John Angerstein and he thought now: "How everything has changed." His patron was grey around the temples, and the chango in fashion in men's clothing further emphasised the passage of the years. Chimney pot hats were now the vogue; breeches and silk stockings,

The story

with buckled shoes, had given way to

short socks and trousers fastened under the instep of tall boots worn inside the trousers leg. On the wall two placards further cried aloud the saga of change. One read: "No sedan chairs allowed inside." That meant that the members of Lloyds were no longer carried from their homes to their desks. Jonathan had an impression that sedan chairs were far fewer in number now; carriages had to a 'considerable extent replaced them. Another sign read : "Subscribers and Connections Only Admitted."

So the waiters of the old coffee shop days were gone—no, there were two of the old hands, clerks now, but (because tradition dies so hard in England) stilll known as waiters! Lloyds no longer functioned in a coffee house; hence the casual visitors who came, ostensibly to inbibe coffee and rolls, but in reality to gape at the underwriters, for ever debarred. Here was a fine large room done in the best style of the period, fenced, off into little boxes, each box furnished with a handsome desk and two or three chairs for the underwriters. There was -a more elaborate rostrum now, but the old bell still hung over it, with a newer larger and more ornate Bulletin Board close by. Jonathan saw at once that the old, free-and-easy camaraderie of the coffee shop days were gone. Here was no place for gossip. It was devoted entirely to business, as a certain quiet and decorum, so different from the old days testified. Jonathan shook hands with his patron and sat down in one of the spare chairs by John Angerstein's desk. He smiled. "Well, sir, I await orders." "I'll have a desk put in here for you, lad—" The bell rang—a waiter went to the bulletin board and wrote: Garbage scow Belle of Woking founders in Thames. Total loss claimed. "I never underwrite any of the insurance on garbage scows," Angerstein said bitingly. "News of maritime matters continues to be very scarce. A storm has been raging in the Channel for two weeks and not a boat has put ashore." "You have splendid new quarters

here, sir." "Oh, yes. We have a soundly organized association now and the association didn't sparo money on furnishing our new home. Jonathan, this is a worrying businesss. The lack of means of swift communication is very trying. A vessel goes ashoro in Scotland and if we knew it here in London twenty-four hours later we might aid her, get her off, repair her and save ourselves considerable loss. But it's a week or two before we hear of it and by that time a storm has sprung up and the vessel has been hammered into small pieces " "Of course," Jonathan agreed, "this lack of swift means of communication does make for greater losses, and greater losses do make for a higher rate of insurance, which doesn't enrich the underwriter a great deal and is a distinct handicap to the ship operator or merchant. I've been giving considerable thought to this subject, Mr Angerstein. I have conceived the idea of a system of semaphores, say five miles apart, the length and breadth of England, to signal news of shipping along our coast. Such a system might easily be self-supporting from its earnings, not only for the transmission of shipping news but also news of general interest to the public—and hence, to the newspapers which sell news to the public. Lookouts at each semaphore station, with a powerful telescope, would read the messages and transmit them. Sort of a relay system." "In the daytime—yes. But how about night-time?" |

"I'm giving that some thought, too. A system of lighting by lanterns." "My boy, I do believe you're tho only man in England who has had tho wit to study this important problem and strivo to solvo it."

"In what condition are my finances, sir?"

"Well, thanks to your frugality and your preference for study, rather than helling around, drinking and gambling, the hundred pounds a year I have managed to make your capital earn has taken you through Eton and supplied your every need. Thanks to yourself, you Avon the Cambridge scholarship, so your annual income has still been moro than sufficient for your needs. Watson has your account made Up to date and presently I will give you a cheque for the amount due you.

Unless, of course," he added, "you prefer to leave it iu my syndicate, of which you have been a silent partner since you first came here. I think you had better do that. Your salary as my assistant now that old Watson is getting so old and helpless he must soon be pensioned, should support you in reasonable styie. You'll be wanting chambers of. your own, of course. Well, take a few days off to attend to your personal affairs. Meanwhile, let us have a cup of coffee." He led the way out of the vast room, through swinging doors into a coffee shop next door. The sign above the door read: Lloyds Coffee Shop. "I suppose," Jonathan remarked gaily, "you old underwriters couldn't function if, between the writing of policies, you didn't have 4 a coffee shop adjacent, into which you could pop for refreshment."

"Habits," Angerstein rejoined smilingly, "never die until the proprietor of the habit dies. This coffee room is open to the public, and it is called Lloyd's Coffee Shop, although the owner's name is Meecham. Edward Lloyd has been dead too long to object, and the name had great advertising value. And the coffee is even better than it was in the old days. A waiter here is a waiter and nothing else."

Close to the door that led from the Subscribers'Room into the coffee house was a stall where were dispensed newspapers, periodicals, cigars, snuff, tobacco, etc. It was presided over by a pretty, pert, common young girl. Angerstein nodded to her: "Good morning Polly." "Good morning, Mr Angerstein." She touched a small hand-bell to arouse the attention of the waiters. Angerstein and Jonathan seated themselves at a table and a waiter rushed over to take their orders.

"You must get to know Polly, Jonathan," the elder man said. "She's a rare good sport and will give you many a laugh."

"Who is the somewhat over-dressed and smirking dandy talking to her now? Is he connected with Lloyds? I met him coming out of the Subscribers' lloom as I came in." "That blot on the fair record of nature, Jonathan, is one Lord Everette Stacy." And Angerstein added, unconsciously humorous and quite as an afterthought: "I do not like the fellow. He has approached some of my colleagues on the subject of investing money in their syndicates—a silent partner, you know. He knows of no .other business that will pay him such high interest on his money. I want nothing to do with the fellow."

"From the look he is giving you now, sir," Jonathan opined, "he would like to have something to do with you."

(To be continued.)