Lloyd's List over the centuries.
is one of the world's oldest continuously-running journals, having provided weekly shipping news in London as early as
1734. Now published daily, a recent issue was numbered 59,200 (2007). Known simply as 'The List',
Lloyd's List was begun by
Edward Lloyd, the proprietor of
Lloyd's Coffee House in the
City of London, as a reliable but terse source of information for the merchants' agents and insurance underwriters who met regularly in his establishment in
Lombard Street to negotiate insurance coverage for trading vessels. The newspaper survives today to fulfil a similar purpose, although its circulation is now international, both paper and web-based, and it appears daily. As well as shipping news,
Lloyd's List today covers marine insurance, offshore energy, logistics, global trade and law. It boasts that for the shipping industry, the paper is "sometimes its conscience, too". Its timely international casualty reports, however, continue to be one of the paper's most important features, and are updated frequently in the Internet edition.
History
An early image of Edward Lloyd's Coffee House, where Lloyd's List was originally published in the 17th century.
Predecessor publications are known. One historian, Michael Palmer, claims: "No later than January 1692, Lloyd began publishing a weekly newsletter,
Ships Arrived at and Departed from several Ports of England, as I have Account of them in London ... [and] An Account of what English Shipping and Foreign Ships for England, I hear of in Foreign Ports. However, claims that
Lloyd's List is the oldest or second-oldest continuously published newspaper in the world are disputed. The
World Association of Newspapers lists three earlier, extant titles.
A copy of the 22 December 1696 edition, number 257, survives and is reproduced in McCusker, John J.:
European Bills of Entry and Marine Lists: Early Commercial Publications and the Origins of the Business Press, Part II: British Marine Lists and Continental Counterparts." Publication was weekly until March 1735, when it increased to semi-weekly, on Tuesdays and Fridays according to Palmer. A rival "New Lloyd's List" was launched in 1769, in conjunction with the
New Lloyd's Coffee House in Pope's Head Alley, which, with the newspaper, evolved into the institutions known today. The paper went daily on 1 July 1837, and was published every day but Sunday. In July 1884
Lloyd's List was merged with the
Shipping and Mercantile Gazette.
According to
Directory of Lloyd's and London Insurance Market, a publication dubbed
Lloyd's News was first published by Edward Lloyd in
1696, the earliest extant copy of which is dated 1701. This source reports that
The List was established as a regular weekly publication by Edward Lloyd in 1734.
In
1914 ownership of The List was transferred to the
Corporation of Lloyd's, which was incorporated by an
Act of Parliament in
1871. In
1973 it was transferred to a division,
Lloyd's of London Press Ltd, and subject to a management buy-out in
1995 to become
LLP Ltd. In
1998 LLP merged with IBC Group plc to form
Informa plc, which continues to edit and publish
Lloyd's List in Mortimer Street, London.
Over the years, Lloyd's List spawned several spin-off titles, including sister title
. In 2002, a long tradition came to an end when the journal ceased to refer to ships as "she", adopting the neutral word "it" instead.
Personnel
- On 4 December 2008, senior staff included:
- *Executive Editor: Christopher Mayer
- *News Editor: Richard Meade
- *Chief Executive, Publishing: Fotini Liontou
Reporters on the Newspaper included Markets Editor Michelle Weise-Bockmann, Janet Porter - winner of the Seahorse Journalist of the Year prize, Tony Gray, Sandra Speares, Jerry Frank, David Osler and Martyn Wingrove.
Lloyd's List also has correspondents in 17 countries.
