1859 - A Good Year

Whilst we acclimatise to a new working environment, face different types of challenge (including that of the domestic setting in many cases) and sometimes box with new technology for the first time, I was thinking about Lloyd’s and the London Market, and its incredible history of innovation, adaptation and well founded reputation for resilience.  

?If you like history, or are a student of marine insurance, do join me on a lightning tour of Lloyd’s in your next break….(and answer the five quiz questions without using Google). For a touch of suspense I’ve broken it up into four parts.

Part 2 – The Father of Lloyd’s

1859 was a great year, it seems, for the births of future writers. We had baby Arthur Conan Doyle, (Sherlock Holmes) Kenneth Grahame (Wind In The Willows) and Jerome K Jerome (Three Men in a Boat) to name but a few.  It was also a great year for marmalade, being the first year of Robertson’s ‘Golden Shred’.  Ponder on this as you have your toast tomorrow morning.

However, someone equally profound was also born that year, and his name was Cuthbert Eden Heath. He has been called both the Father of Lloyd’s and the Maker of the Modern Lloyd’s, a well earned laurel. He is remembered primarily for his fateful cable sent to the Lloyd's Agent in San Francisco in 1906: "pay all our policyholders in full irrespective of the terms of their policies", and from that moment the reputation of the Lloyd's Market as a trusted claims settler was forever cemented into history. 

However, he was an innovator in many other respects too – he agreed to write the very first “…ship navigating on land.” (1904), the first fire policy at Lloyd’s, (1906), the first Jeweller’s Block policy, (1908), the first aviation policy (1911) and the first “aerial bombardment” cover (for 2s per ￡100). 

Cuthbert Heath set the tone for meticulous risk analysis and targeted risk-taking in the 20th Century, and lived to see the fruits of his innovations during his 39 years in the 20th century.  It is little wonder that his name is still well known to this day....

Quiz questions!

1. Name one other character in Sherlock Holmes
2. What is a shilling is today’s money?
3. What was this “ship navigating on land” referring to?
4. What happened in San Francisco in 1906 which generated the cable to “pay all claims”?
5. What aviation first did Harriet Quimby achieve in 1912?

Good luck.

Next time - the greatest military conflict that the insurance industry, and the modern world, had ever seen…