LLOYD, WILLIAM, Bishop of Worcester, the son of the rector of Tilchurst in Berkshire, was born there on 18th August 1627. He received his elementary education from his father, and at the age of eleven entered Oriel College, Oxford. Shortly afterwards he became a scholar of Jesus College, and was chosen Bachelor of Arts in 1642, and Master of Arts in 1646. In 1648 he was ordained deacon, and, after living in Berkshire as tutor in a gentleman's family, was presented in 1654 to the rectory of Bradwell. A dispute about the right of presentation soon induced him to resign this benefice. Ordained a priest in 1665 he was appointed in 1666 chaplain in ordinary to Charles II.; and in the following year became a Doctor of Divinity. After passing through several of the lower grades of church preferment, he was installed in 1672 dean of Bangor; and in 1676 was presented by the crown to the vicarage of St Martin's-in-the-Fields, the greatest cure in England. He was promoted to the see of St Asaph in 1680; and was one of the seven bishops who were imprisoned in the Tower in 1688, for refusing to publish in their pulpits the king's declaration for liberty of conscience. A thorough-going supporter of the Revolution, Lloyd was appointed almoner to William and Mary soon after their arrival in England. In 1692 he was translated to the see of Coventry and Lichfield; but was promoted in 1699 to the bishopric of Worcester, vacant by the death of Stillingfleet. He died at Hartlebury Castle, on the 30th August 1717.
Bishop Lloyd contributed many pamphlets to the controversy against Popery that was agitated during his time. Besides a few other tracts on ecclesiastical subjects, and several sermons, he published A Chronological Account of the Life of Pythagoras and of his famous Contemporaries, London, 1699, 8vo; and left unfinished A Dissertation upon Daniel's Seventy Weeks, and A System of Chronology. His friend Dr Burnet, in the History of His Own Time, eulogises Lloyd's amiable disposition, his ample and accurate knowledge, especially in chronology, and his skill as a Biblical critic.
LLOYD'S, a number of rooms in the Royal Exchange of London, frequented by underwriters, merchants, shipowners, ship and insurance brokers, and others, chiefly for the purpose of obtaining shipping intelligence, and of transacting business connected with marine insurance. The principal room is that of the Underwriters, in which two enormous ledgers lie constantly open,—the one containing notices of speaking, or ships spoken with, and arrivals of vessels at their various destinations; the other recording disasters at sea. All intelligence is entered immediately upon its reception, without removing the ledgers from their places, in order
that they may at any moment be inspected by those interested in their contents. At the inner end of the room is an ingenious piece of mechanism, by means of which the indications of an anemometer and an anemoscope are inscribed every hour in the twenty-four, by a couple of pencils, upon a sheet of white paper. The advantage to the underwriter, in the conduct of his business, of this information respecting the force and the direction of the wind, can scarcely be over-estimated. The underwriters are persons who, for a premium, grant an indemnity to merchants against risks by sea; and they are so called from the custom of writing their names under, or at the foot of, the policies of insurance. The method of effecting an insurance at Lloyd's is the following:—When a broker receives an order to insure interest to a certain amount in a particular ship, he writes upon a slip of paper the name of the vessel, the master's name, the nature of the voyage, the subject to be insured and its value, and any other information which the circumstances of the case may require. He then offers the risk to different underwriters until the value of the interest to be insured is exhausted, each underwriter subscribing his name opposite to the amount he engages to insure, and all agreeing to accept a uniform premium. The insurance is now virtually effected; the stamped policy being afterwards extended from this slip. This distribution of the risk among many individuals is, of course, very conducive both to the solvency of the underwriter and to the security of the insured. The number of underwriters is under 200; but some idea of the immense amount of insurance business done at Lloyd's may be derived from the fact, that the value of the interest annually insured at present is estimated at about £40,000,000. No person is permitted to transact business at Lloyd's as an underwriter or insurance-broker, until he shall have been duly admitted as a member, and shall have paid an entrance-fee. Communicating with the Underwriters' Room is the Chart Room. Here a valuable collection of charts, and the shipping intelligence as originally received, are carefully arranged, so as to be at all times easy of access. In this room also lie, for the use of members, four ledgers, in which the names of ships are arranged in alphabetical order, each name having under it all the information possessed regarding the vessel. The Merchants' Room is a place of resort for general news; it is, in fact, a news or reading room. The Captains' Room is employed as an auction-room for sales of ships, &c. Every person who enjoys the privilege of frequenting Lloyd's pays a fixed annual subscription.
The shipping intelligence received at Lloyd's is furnished by agents, who are appointed for the purpose; and as there is scarcely a port of any consequence where one is not resident, their number is very large. The information which each transmits to headquarters is regular, accurate, and complete. It is furnished by means of letters, signed by the agents, and by means of the newspapers and shipping lists which are published at the various ports;—the intelligence thus received consisting not only of a list of vessels which had arrived at, and which had sailed from, the particular ports, together with their accomplished and intended voyages, and of casualties which had occurred at or near the ports, but also of notices of ships spoken with, and of casualties at sea, furnished by vessels. No salary attaches to the office of agent for Lloyd's; the labour involved being amply recompensed by the business which it commands, and by the credit which the appointment confers upon its holder as a person of worth and respectability.
The intelligence, besides being made known to the members of Lloyd's by means of the ledgers, of which we have already spoken, is published every afternoon in Lloyd's List for diffusion over the country.
The management of Lloyd's lies with the subscribers, who select a committee from their number for the purpose, called the "Committee for managing the affairs of Lloyd's."
Lloyd's This committee appoints the agents and the officials of the establishment. The expenses connected with the establishment are defrayed by the fees and annual subscriptions.
Loango. The designation Lloyd's originated with a person of the name of Lloyd, who kept a coffee-house in Abchurch Lane, Lombard Street. From the vicinity of this house to the Old Royal Exchange, it speedily became a rendezvous of merchants for news, and for the transaction of business. It was afterwards removed to Pope's Head Alley, and thence again, in 1774, to the Royal Exchange. After the destruction of the Exchange in 1838 by fire, which originated in Lloyd's, the business was carried on in the South Sea House, in Old Broad Street, where it remained until the opening of the present Royal Exchange in 1844, when it was finally removed to its present splendid apartments. Similar establishments exist in our principal seaports.