NEW BUILDING

Southland Times, Issue 20447, 27 March 1928, Page 5

NEW BUILDING

LLOYD’S INSURANCE CEREMONY PERFORMED BY THE KING GROWTH OF FAMOUS INSTITUTION (By Telegraph—Presss Assn—Copyright.) Rugby, March 24. The King and Queen were received by cheering crowds when they drove from Buckingham Palace this morning to open the magnificent new offices recently erected for Lloyd’s, and which are generally regarded as one of London’s finest buildings. The growth of the famous institution is one of the romances of the city history. Two hundred and forty years ago seamen and merchants used to meet in a coffee house in Tower Street, kept by Edward Lloyd. Here, too, came those who w ? ere interested in marine insurance. Soon Lloyd's coffee house became the recognised place for the transaction of business dealing with shipping and its risks. From these small beginnings has sprung the great corporation of marine underwriters known world wide as Lloyd's. The building opened to-day by the King has been designed by Sir Edward Cooper.— British Official Wireless. THE KING’S ADDRESS. Rugby, March 25. The opening yesterday by the King of Lloyd’s new building in the city was an impressive spectacle. In the course of his speech, in reply to the address of welcome, the King referred to the long history of the corporation of Lloyd’s. He said. “Lloyd's is one of the greatest representatives of insurance, especially of marine insurance, of which it was the pioneer and it is an organised system of marine insurance w’hich has transformed overseas trade from daring and hazardous speculation to an orderly and smoothly working exchange of commodities on which modern civilisation depends. Hazards indeed remain, but their disastrous consequences have been averted by the introduction of Lloyd’s policies of insurances and the unerring justice in dealing with these policies which has always been your proud tradition. By the development of this idea of insurance the community is linked together by mutual duties and service, and in this way a shock which would have overpowered an individual man, family or partnership is so widely distributed that it can be harmlessly absorbed, and as insurance creates a bond of union between citizen and citizen and between nation and nation, so it holds together the fabric of civilized society and is conducive to international peace.”—British Official Wireless. COST TWO MILLIONS. London, March 24. The King opened in I>eadenhall Street the new Lloyds’ building which cost £2,000,000.—A. and N.Z.